NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian telecoms company VimpelCom could be close to a $775m settlement with a US court that accused it of paying bribes to access mobile licences in Uzbekistan, Bloomberg reported. Earlier in November, the company set aside $900m for settlement costs. VimpelCom representatives declined to comment.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Possibly aimed at either cracking down on corruption or giving the under-pressure somoni currency a boost, Tajikistan’s parliament discussed a bill that would ban Tajik official from holding bank accounts or property overseas. Corruption is a major issue in Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Norwegian telecoms company Telenor said it had suspended four executives, including COO Richard Olva Aa, while an investigation into alleged bribe paying by VimpelCom in Uzbekistan continues. Telenor owns 33% of VimpelCom.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s government said it wanted foreign investors to buy stakes in state-owned enterprises, part of a privatisation plan it said was designed to bring expertise into some of its biggest companies.
Deputy PM Rustam Azimov made the statement at an investment forum in Tashkent.
“[The plan is] to attract strategic investors who are able to bring new technology and equipment (and) organise the production of modern and competitive products,” Reuters quoted Mr Azimov as saying.
He cherry-picked three companies, seemingly as a teaser to pique foreign investor interest. These were cement maker Kizilkumcement, chemical producer Ferganaazot and electronics plant Foton.
For foreign investors, though, Uzbekistan has always been a complicated to do business in. It holds a high level of natural resources, mainly gold, gas and cotton, but is riddled through with corruption and intrigue. Western companies have previously had their assets taken by the Uzbek state too.
It remains to be seen if Uzbekistan is serious about opening up to foreign investors — and also whether these investors are Western, Korean, Chinese, Russia or from elsewhere.
The Uzbek government does need to raise funds though to deal with the current economic malaise.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev fired his long-serving communications minister Ali Abbasov, the second sacking of a government minister in two months.
Mr Aliyev has generally preferred to keep people in key positions for years, so the sackings have created an unusual sense of instability around the Azerbaijani government.
Mr Abbasov had been communications minister for over 11 years.
The presidential press service announced the sacking through an online statement. No reason was given for the sacking although shortly afterwards police arrested 10 senior officials in the communications ministry and charged them with corruption.
The pattern is similar to the sacking last month of national security minister Eldar Mahmudov. He had also been in the job since 2004. Similarly, after Mr Mahmudov was sacked, police arrested several senior officials in the national security ministry for corruption.
Azerbaijan is routinely criticised for its corruption levels but it is unusual for the state to purge its own ranks for alleged graft and even more unusual for an internal investigation to trigger ministerial sackings.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
OCT. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an intergovernmental organisation set up to improve transparency in mining and oil sectors, published its first report on Tajikistan which the authors said shone some light on the murky Tajik extractive sector.
Anti-corruption lobby groups have previously criticised the Tajik government for siphoning off cash from its metals sector and while the report was considered a step forward for transparency in Tajikistan, there were still many blank spots.
And the authors of the report made this clear.
“Three of the 14 companies in the EITI Report are partially state owned. Considerable details related to these companies are missing from the report due to the currently weak government systems for recording all company payments,” they wrote in the EITI report.
Tajikistan had been supposed to present its first report to the EITI in February, a deadline it missed.
A presentation on the report will be made in Dushanbe on Nov. 25.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Norway arrested Jo Lunder, the former CEO of Russian telecoms company VimpelCom, in connection with alleged bribe paying in Uzbekistan, further damaging the reputation of foreign telecoms companies operating in Central Asia.
A few days earlier, Norway’s industry minister, Monica Maeland, sacked Svein Aaser as Telenor’s chairman over the corruption probe. She said that Telenor had been handling an internal investigation into the case badly.
“I no longer have confidence in Telenor’s chairman,” Ms Maeland said in a statement.
VimpelCom is alleged to have paid millions of dollars in bribes to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of President Islam Karimov, for mobile licences in Uzbekistan. Swedish TeliaSonera is also being investigated for bribe-paying.
In October, Telenor said it wanted to sell its 33% stake in VimpelCom, effectively cutting the company’s operations in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
NOV. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Corruption is still rife in Uzbekistan despite the introduction of the country’s first anti-corruption plan earlier this year and a so called anti-corruption coordination commission, the OECD said in a new report.
In its report, the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that Uzbekistan needs to criminalise corruption and promote public sector honesty and integrity.
Corruption and bribery are considered deeply embedded in Uzbekistan. The OECD, an intergovernmental organisation, report is evidence that little has changed despite some headline policies.
In effect, the OECD, said that Uzbekistan’s new laws were window dressing.
In its exhaustive 116 page report, the OECD said that Uzbekistan needed to focus on a handful of key policies if it was committed to beating corruption.
These involved conducting anti- corruption surveys regularly and publishing the results; improving the independence and integrity of the law enforcement agencies; developing e- government tools.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)
OCT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s exiled former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev published an autobiography of his time in office, a move that will irritate the Kyrgyz leadership. Mr Bakiyev presented his book in Belarus, where he fled after a revolution in 2010. Kyrgyzstan has tried unsuccessfully to extradite Mr Bakiyev to face various corruption charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 18/20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev sacked National Security Minister Eldar Mahmudov two days before police arrested seven other senior officials and accused them of abuse of office.
The move surprised analysts of Azerbaijan’s murky political scene as Mr Mahmudov had been considered a close ally of Mr Aliyev.
He had held the position as the powerful National Security Minister for 11 years and no reason was given for his dismissal. Mr Aliyev had handed him the position of National Security Minister within a year of taking over as president from his father.
Although Mr Mahmudov has not been arrested, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor-General opened criminal cases into his seven officials for abuse of office.
“Investigative operations have raised suspicions about a group of ministry officials abusing service powers, illegally intervening in the activities of entrepreneurs in violation of the law on entrepreneurship, and violating the judicially and legally protected interests of different individuals,” it said in a statement.
Human rights groups and opposition activists have previously accused Mr Aliyev of undermining his opponents by accusing them of corruption.
The arrests and the sacking of Mr Mahmudov, whether they are linked to corruption or not, add a degree of instability to Azerbaijan, already rocked by the imprisonment of journalists and opposition activists.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
