CRUDE ACCOUNTABILITY LETTER TO MS. RACHEL KYTE
Ms. Rachel Kyte
Director
Environment and Social Development Department
International Finance Corporation
2121 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20433
November 3, 2005
Dear Rachel:
Thank you for your response to my previous letter regarding the IFC’s involvement at Karachaganak.
Unfortunately, your letter did not address the first issue I raised in my letter of September 29, which was to request a meeting with the IFC’s team that traveled to Karachaganak this fall. I would like the opportunity to meet with them to discuss their trip to Karachaganak. I trust we will be able to find a mutually agreeable time in the near future.
In addition, we request a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding between KPO, the western Kazakhstan authority and the Ministry of Environment, and the EEP (No. 270 300 007 850), to which you refer in your letter. If you could send a copy of each document to our address (at the top of this letter), we would be most appreciative.
In response to your statement that the annual monitoring reports (AMRs) cannot be made available to the public, we would like to remind the IFC that according to your own policies, the disclosure of environmental information is critical to local communities. The AMRs contain key environmental monitoring information that is necessary for local communities’ ability to understand whether the company is in compliance with international standards and national law. We would like to request again that the annual monitoring report be made public, and request a copy of the most recent report.
Independent air monitoring conducted over the past year indicates repeated excess emissions of carbon disulfide, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic chemicals from Karachaganak. In light of this information, we believe it is in the IFC’s interest, as well as that of the local community, to make public the AMR.
Finally, with regard to the denial of KPO’s operating license in April 2005, according to the Uralsk Weekly, a reputable, regional newspaper in western Kazakhstan, the license was denied in April 2005 for serious and repeated environmental violations. I encourage you to read the article, a translation of which is attached here.
I look forward to hearing from you soon, and to arranging a briefing meeting with the IFC team that traveled to Karachaganak in September 2005.
Sincerely,
Kate Watters
Executive Director
Cc: Meg Taylor, Amar Inamdar, Heike Mainhardt, Aleksey Knizhnikov, Michelle Kinman