KRG awards audit contracts to Deloitte, EY

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has hired auditing firms Deloitte and EY to audit the region's oil and gas sector, to overcome issues regarding transparency and accountability, Kurdistan Regional Cabinet Secretary Amanj Raheem said December 6. 

In a speech at the Kurdistan Iraq Oil and Gas Conference in London, he said that the hiring agreement was signed in late November and it would have 13 phases from oil production to bonus payments.

The minister noted that the auditing would include all oil and gas production in KRG, oil and gas sales, all KRG entitlements and all international entitlements and all payments in the oil and gas sector.

He said the KRG’s Supreme Auditing Board did not have the capacity to meet World Bank standards and so it invited the Big Four auditing firms. He also added that the audit would be totally independent and the produced audit reports would be sent to KRG Council of Oil and Gas.

The director general of audit inspection at the ministry of national resources, Ahmet Mufti, said the audit would bring credibility, and that Iraq’s standards were only for service companies, whereas the KRG contracts include production sharing agreements and are more complex. The Kurdistan Regional Government wants to increase the amount of foreign investment to its oil and gas sector. 

Murat Basboga