MOSCOW — The Audit Chamber, a federal agency overseeing government expenditures, has announced plans to audit several oil companies with government stakes in the country.

Audit Chamber official Mikhail Beskhmelnitsyn named Rosneft and Tatneft as the first targets of the agency’s campaign. Auditor Chamber officials said their plans in 2004 include checking license agreements between the Natural Resources Ministry and users of natural resources — which are the regional administrations. Such checks are to start in regions that are rich in oil and diamonds, they added.

Beskhmelnitsyn also noted that checks carried out at LUKoil and Rosneft’s affiliated companies’ financial activities in 2003 showed that, Rosneft, owned 100 percent by the state company, contributed twice less to the government coffers than LUKoil, where the state owns just 10 percent stake. The aim of this check is to verify whether or not Rosneft is paying its taxes correctly, while in case of Tatneft, the aim will be to verify the tariffs formation, he added.

In another development, Audit Chamber Chairman Sergei Stepashin said the chamber also want to audit the Defense Ministry because the army and fleets were reduced several times, but the number of buildings and other assets used by the Ministry of Defense have only decreased by some fractions of a percentage. “It is necessary to examine how land and other fixed assets are being used by the military.”