JAN. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign investment in Uzbekistan is again under the spotlight after Russian news agency Regnum quoted the British ambassador in Tashkent, George Edgar, saying that companies were having to quit the country because of various problems with the business environment.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Washington-based Heritage Foundation said that weak rule of law in Kazakhstan had supressed its position in its global rankings on economic freedom. In this year’s ranking, Kazakhstan dropped six places to 69th in the list of 178 countries.
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(News report from Issue No. 216, published on Jan. 28 2015)
JAN. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — An anonymous whistle-blower in Norway has alleged corruption at Vimpelcom, a telecoms company a third owned by Norwegian Telenor, media reported. Telenor and Vimpelcom deny the allegations. Uzbekistan’s telecoms sector is already mired in an alleged corruption case.
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(News report from Issue No. 215, published on Jan. 21 2015)
JAN. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kazakh court extended the pre-trial house arrest of former PM Serik Akhmetov. Mr Akhmetov, who was arrested in November and accused of corruption, was Kazakh PM between Sept. 2012 and April 2014. His fall from grace highlights the fragile nature of power in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)
NOV. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s prosecutor charged Melis Myrzakmatov, the once powerful mayor of Osh, for alleged corruption in a move linked to next year’s parliamentary election.
Mr Myrzakmatov, a nationalist, ruled Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second city, with significant de facto autonomy from Bishkek between 2009 and 2013. He was eventually upseated by central government but last year he announced his intention to compete in parliamentary elections scheduled for autumn 2015.
The new corruption charges, so the theory goes, are designed to scupper these ambitions.
Kyrgyzstan’s General Prosecutor accused Mr Myrzakmatov of stealing $500,000 during the tender of a construction project for a bridge in Osh.
Mr Myrzakmatov has been one of the government’s most outspoken and formidable opponents. Such was his hold over Osh that he survived the political reshuffle after the country’s revolution in 2010 and ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in June of the same year.
Many Uzbeks suspect Mr Myrzakmatov played a role in instigating the ethnic violence to consolidate his control over Osh.
Mr Myrzakmatov’s party, Uluttar Birimdigi, which is not in the current parliament, would have been guaranteed strong support among Kyrgyz in Osh and elsewhere in the South. This would have complicated the electoral arithmetic for other dominant parties, including President Almazbek Atambayev’s Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan.
Mr Myrzakmatov is being charged in absentia as his current whereabouts is unknown. Mr Atambayev launched a
‘war on corruption’ when he was inaugurated 2011. Most of the victims of this so-called appeared to be his political rivals.
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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)
NOV. 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Serik Akhmetov, a former Kazakh prime minister and defence minister, was arrested and placed under house arrest for alleged corruption.
It’s been a spectacular fall from grace for the man who was prime minister in April before being moved to the head the defence ministry. He was sacked as defence minister in October.
Powerbases in Kazakhstan are still formed at a local level and it was clear that Mr Akhmetov was going to find himself under increased pressure when senior officials from his home region of Karaganda started to be arrested.
A local court has imprisoned former governor of the region, Baurzhan Abdishev and the former mayor of the city of Karaganda, Meyram Smagulov as well as other officials.
A loyal figure ready to accept any inconvenient position under the instruction of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Mr Akhmetov was one of two powerful men from the Karaganda region. The other one, Nurlan Nigmatullin, is now head of the presidential administration. Businessmen used to say that without Mr Akhmetov’s approval, no deals could be reached in Kazakhstan.
“It would appear [that] the arrest of the former PM of Kazakhstan is about graft, but it could also be an attempt to rid the field of competitive presidential successors,” said Stacy Closson, professor at the University of Kentucky and expert on Central Asian elites.
Possibly.
Mr Akhmetov’s arrest certainly changes the relationship between corruption and politics in Kazakhstan. Previously, only political opponents used to be the target of corruption charges. Now loyalists seem vulnerable too.
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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)
NOV. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – As part of a tour of Central Asia, Swiss President Didier Burkhalter travelled to Uzbekistan. This was a rare trip to Uzbekistan by a Western leader, who are keen to avoid the Uzbek stigma of human rights abuses.
In a meeting, Uzbek President Islam Karimov and Mr Burkhalter discussed “mutual ties, the situation in the world, bilateral business relations and international organizations’ roles,” the official Uzbek media dryly report.
Although little official information is available about Mr Burkhalter’s visit, it is clear the Uzbek side had a few topics to discuss with him.
One issue was the $1b sitting in Swiss bank accounts that allegedly belongs to Gulnara Karimova, the Uzbek president’s daughter. Swiss banks froze that money after prosecutors launched a criminal investigation into suspected money laundering activities.
Ms Karimova is believed to be under house arrest in Tashkent, while other people the Swiss prosecutors wanted to interview have been jailed by Uzbek courts. The Uzbek side will probably use the Swiss president’s visit to attempt to salvage the frozen assets.
Another matter the official Tashkent would have been eager to discuss is the parliamentary elections in December, because Mr Burkhalter is also OSCE Chairperson- in-Office. The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent a mission to Uzbekistan late October to assess elections monitoring needs. The ODIHR assessors recommend sending a limited observation mission due to a lack of competition.
Perhaps to incline Mr Burkhalter toward benevolence, President Karimov signed a decree on introducing amendments to a Swiss-Uzbek agreement on avoiding double taxation.
NOV. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Highlighting Azerbaijan’s deep- rooted problem with corruption, police arrested former deputy defence minister Salimov Mehman for alleged corruption, media reported. Mr Mehman had been deputy defence minister from 1995 to 1999.
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(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)
NOV. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan have sacked the powerful head of the Tashkent police force, Colonel Abdumajid Mullajonov, and several of his deputies, media reported.
Over the past year intrigue has gripped Uzbekistan over the demise of the once all-power daughter of President Islam Karimov, Gulnara Karimova, and her associates. Sources in Tashkent said, though, that dismissal of Colonel Mullajonov, the son of the Central Bank chief, was not linked to politics.
Instead media said he had been sacked for corruption and bribery.
The importance of the change of leadership at the Tashkent police force is to highlight the flux that these powerful Uzbek institutions are currently going through.
Uzbek sources said Colonel Mullajonov allegedly misappropriated businesses of a sugar magnate who was a close business partner of Ms Karimova, and that he owned dozens of fuel stations in the two largest cities in Uzbekistan.
Uzbek politics, business and power are closely linked. The sacking of Colonel Mullajonov and his colleagues adds more intrigue to a fluid domestic situation.
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(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)
OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – he European Court of Human Rights ordered Georgia to pay Sulkhan Molashvili, a former official in the state audit committee, $25,000 compensation for wrongly being imprisoned in 2004 for corruption. The current Georgian government has charged former ministers under ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili of abuse of power.
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(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)
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