Transparency Initiative in the extractive industries in Iraq

And the peoples of the workshop 

The institution and the Journal of the Peoples for the cultural democracy, have established an interactive seminar about the definition of transparency in the extractive industries in Iraq, the seminar have been divided into a several themes, at the beginning Mr. Said Yassin, the General Secretary of the Corporation, Member of the Board of stakeholders, talked about oil Technology and provided an overview on how to manage the oil file in the former regime and the transfer of oil from a technical-economical and developmental file that supports the Iraqi economy into a political file which is controlled by the political will, and the belief of Iraq for the importance of this sector and its impact on the economic development, and its greatly affect on the stability of the world oil market, but in order to start a solid trading policy, such as the development of this sector and Tours permits oil to increase oil production, Iraq has signed the International agreement for transparency in the extractive industries including oil and minerals, as a first stage of crude oil that is exported to the world market, and later will include gas and minerals extracted in the case of export trading and universal well as in the case of export of petroleum products after refining through the refinery investment or national after filling the need for local, it has been mentioned that Iraq is the largest country in the agreement in terms of production of oil extracted and reserved, were reviewed in Iraq's interest in the membership of the international agreement and change the image of Iraq in terms of economic stability and increase development rates and the development of infrastructure and speeding up programs to combat poverty and decrease unemployment as well as to confirm that Iraq is a safe and encouraging country to attract international investment, Yassin have also noted that the request and the signing of Iraq on the agreement, is an important indicator to promote integrity and transparency and ensuring good governance of financial resources and strengthen efforts to combat financial and administrative corruption and an important-fixed step toward building a democratic institutional Iraq, which humans are respected as a source of authority and the owner of first and last interest.

In the second theme, Mr. Yasser Abdel-Hay, the member of the agreement, dealt with how the adoption of Iraq to stand for the International agreement for transparency in the extractive industries that was announced in early 2010, and begun to meet international requirements for creating the formation of the leadership management of the agreement, called the Council (stakeholders) and dealt in detail about the structure of the agreement in Iraq, and sustained-intensive meetings and workshops that implemented by the agreement, and how to choose the Council of stakeholders, saying that, The House of stakeholders consists of the President of the Council Dr. Ali Al-alaq, Vice-President who is the Secretary-General of the agreement, Mr. Alaa Mohiuddin and representatives of the Iraqi government from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Industry, and representatives of regulatory bodies as an integrity and BSA, and three companies of national productivity, the NOC and the SOC and the Maysan Oil in addition to the company marketing the oil as a governmental source responsible for the marketing and sale of crude oil, and three companies represents the foreign companies, and three representatives career CSO as a union of journalists, the lawyers Association and Association of Accountants, and three non-governmental organizations, and as it is expected to nominate a representative to the House of Representatives for heading the Council, and the Speakers stressed on the importance of the national agreement and the need for transparency in all joints of the governmental action and follow-up returns through the declaration of the general budget for Iraq and the Declaration Help the implementation of the budget and the rates of completion of projects and the Declaration of government expenditure, after all that, it was out in the following recommendations:

• The need to do a media campaign and explain the functions of the agreement, its structure and mechanisms for the implementation of the stages of transparency.

• Enlargement of the retaining Committee include the organizations in all provinces, especially where oil resources are located.

• Implementation of awareness-raising workshops and the definition of the agreements to know the importance of the citizen in the country and consolidate the confidence in the government agencies, and ensure citizen's support for the agreement.

• promote the agreement to include all activities and oil licensing rounds as an admin.

Also it has Participated in the symposium a several civil society organizations specialized in human rights, culture and a gathering of academics, activists, journalists and members of the Foundation for the Peoples.
It is worth noting that the Office of Inspector General in the Ministry of Oil proactive and since shortly after the fall of the former regime in the issuance of an annual report on the matter of oil and transparency of production and trading, financial and administrative corruption in this sector without the ministry's obligated to do so, in addition to the announcement of monthly and quarterly and annual production quantities of oil and sales and financial returns and to inform the public in newspapers, television and websites on the pages of the form in which information can be accessed easily by everyone.