Azernews.Az

BAKU – Some Azerbaijani ministries and state-run companies owe billions of manats to the state budget, a lawmaker has said.

"[Some] major taxpayers are failing to meet their state budget obligations," Vahid Ahmadov, who sits on the parliamentary committee for economic policy, told AssA-Irada.

The biggest taxpayers in the country are the state-owned energy producer Azerenergy, the state-run chemicals producer Azerkimya, water supplier Azersu, state airline AzAL, Caspian Shipping Company, Azerbaijan Railways, the communications ministry, and the state oil company Socar.

Ahmadov said the government has not managed to collect the accumulated debt for many years. As a result, the projection on tax transfers to the country’s 2010 budget was not fulfilled, he said.

Ahmadov suggested that the Accounting Chamber draw up a report detailing the outstanding debt of cabinet ministries.

"I will ask the Accounting Chamber to submit a report on the structure of the debt, because these arrears have been growing by the year. Some government officials are seeing that the country is receiving a windfall of oil revenues, so they are failing to do their job. We are very concerned over this."