Tag Archives: corruption

Tajik officials investigate former Dushanbe mayor for corruption

JAN. 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anti-corruption officials in Tajikistan opened an investigation into the former mayor of Dushanbe Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloev, RFE/RL reported. He was sacked earlier this month. The sacking and investigation, which focuses on a new housing scheme, of Mr Ubaidulloev may signal the start of a power struggle within the Tajik elite. Mr Ubaidulloev had been considered an arch loyalist. Anti- corruption campaigners have said that Tajikistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)f

Uzbek investigators interview Gulnara Karimova

JAN. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek prosecutors interviewed Gulnara Karimova at her home in Tashkent, where she is under house arrest, about money laundering, media in Switzerland reported by quoting her lawyer.

This is the first news of Ms Karimova since her father, former Uzbek president Islam Karimov, died in September. In November a report surfaced on opposition news website that she had been poisoned.

The German-language business newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung published an interview with Ms Karimova’s lawyer, Gregoire Mangeat, who said that he had flown to Tashkent for the interviews held on Dec. 9/10.

He said that she was in good health but had been under pressure from the two state prosecutors to admit to various crimes.

“She was very combative and showed an amazing resistance to the arbitrary situation,” he said. “She bravely endured the confrontation with the three Uzbek prosecutors in military uniform. Twice, however, she burst into tears.”

Mr Mangeat also said that Ms Karimova’s living conditions were inhumane and designed to make her crack.

“My client is held in a small annex of her former house in the centre of Tashkent. The rest of the house has decayed,” her said. “Gulnara Karimova is completely isolated.”

Ms Karimova had been viewed as a potential successor to her father but in February 2014, as prosecutors from Europe and the United States started investigating telecoms companies who had paid her bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars for access to the Uzbek market, she was placed under house arrest. Since then, very little has been heard of the once self-style fashion diva, pop star, roaming ambassador and business leader.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakh court cuts Ex-PM jail sentence

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Karaganda, central Kazakhstan, cut an eight year jail sentence handed out to former Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov for corruption to 1 year and seven months because of an amnesty granted by President Nursultan Nazarbayev last year to mark the 25th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence. Akhmetov had been PM between Sept. 2012 and April 2014. He was convicted in Dec. 2015. Under the new term, he should be due to be released shortly.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Rolls-Royce admits bribing Azeri and Kazakh officials

ALMATY, JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — British engineering company Rolls-Royce, famed for its powerful industrial engines, admitted to prosecutors in the US, Britain and Brazil that it had bribed officials for years to win contracts, including in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.

The revelations that one of Britain’s most famous companies bribed their way into contracts will not only damage British industry’s reputation but will also reinforce the reputations of both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan as countries where corruption is rife.

The focus of the corrupt payments was a firm called Unaoil which acted as an intermediary for Rolls-Royce, and other companies, for winning contracts. The prosecution said Rolls-Royce knew that some of the fees they paid to Unaoil and other advisers would be used to bribe officials.

Last year, as reported by The Conway Bulletin, the Monaco-based Unaoil was exposed as acting as an intermediary for a number of Western companies.

In a video statement, Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East said corruption at the company was linked to a handful of rogue employees.

“It is apparent that the standards of our business conduct have not lived up to the high standards of our engineering,” he said.

Rolls-Royce has agreed to pay an $800m fine for a so-called Deferred Prosecution Agreement which means that, in return for paying the fine and admitting guilt, criminal proceedings are dropped.

In Kazakhstan the prosecution said Roll-Royce paid out $5.4m to advisers between 2009-12, knowing that some of these fees would be converted into bribes for officials handing out contracts for elements of a gas pipeline between Kazakhstan and China. Rolls-Royce also hired a local distributor in 2012 who they knew was linked to a government official able to influence tenders.

In Azerbaijan Rolls-Royce paid intermediaries who bribed officials on their behalf between 2000-9.

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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakh police arrest pension fund chiefs on corruption allegations

ALMATY, JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kazakh court ordered the arrest of the state pension fund’s top managers on corruption allegations, severely denting the public’s trust in one of the state’s flagship financial organisations.

The arrest of the pension fund’s chairman, Ruslan Erdenaev, the director of financial risk management, Musa Bakhtov, as well as two directors from two different mining companies, is just the latest in a series of high profile corruption cases in Kazakhstan which have even included a former economy minister.

And ordinary Kazakhs, who are already struggling to deal with the impact of a sharp economic downturn that has wiped 50% off the value of the tenge, destroyed jobs and savings, are voicing their frustrations increasingly vocally.

In Almaty, Inna Kisilenko, a mother of a six-year-old boy, shrugged her shoulders.

“Time will tell,” she said. “But honestly I feel doubtful. They [the government] increases the pension age and makes up other things.”

The pension fund arrests were ordered after the Central Bank asked the security services to investigate a deal between the fund and two mining companies worth 5b tenge ($15m) in November.

And the $20b pension fund is a particularly sensitive issue in Kazakhstan. It was created in 2014, when the government forced banks to merge their pension funds into one single state-controlled unit. Kazakhs questioned the motive of such a move. This grumbling turned to outrage when news emerged in the summer that the fund had lent members of the elite cash to finance construction of a shopping centre.

Natalya, 50, summed up people’s feelings.

“I just don’t trust it [pension fund],” she said. “I think it is not right because times are hard. I think about how elderly people survive with their pension money. Everything is getting more expensive, rent, groceries.”

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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kazakh police arrest ex-economy minister

ALMATY, JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Kazakhstan arrested the former economy minister, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, for alleged links to a corruption scheme at the country’s state-owned Baiterek holding company.

Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked Mr Bishimbayev, 36, as economy minister on Dec. 28.

He had only been in the job since May. for the previous three years he had been chairman of Baiterek holding company which administers the state’s shareholdings in various companies.

Several senior executives at Baiterek have been arrested over the past few weeks on bribe-taking allegations. The main focus is Baiterek Development, the holding company’s real estate unit.

Kazakhstan has been hit by several high-profile corruption scandals in the past year.

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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Fertiliser corruption unfolds in Armenia

DEC. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s State Commission on the Protection of Economic Competition said the government had wasted millions of dollars after it gave a contract in 2012 to a single company called Berriutyun to supply fertilisers across the country. There had previously been multiple suppliers. The commission said Berriutyun, linked to a former finance minister, had artificially increased prices by 36%.

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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Rumours swirl over Gulnara’s death in Uzbekistan, some people want her to return

TASHKENT, NOV. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — If there is a shadow hanging over the presidential election in Uzbekistan and the apparent smooth handover of power to Shavkat Mirziyoyev coupled with warmer neighbourly relations, it is the figure of Gulnara Karimova.

Very little has been heard of Uzbekistan’s self-styled diva since she was placed under house arrest in Tashkent in March 2014. She had been the preferred successor of her father, Islam Karimov, but fell from grace after police forces in Europe started investigating her financial affairs. It emerged she had been taking bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign telecoms firms.

Unlike her sister and mother, who have been pictured mourning and have set up an institute in Karimov’s name, Ms Karimova has hardly been mentioned in news coverage since her father’s death on Sept. 2.

That is until a Russian language website which specialises on reporting on Central Asia, centre1.com, quoted an unnamed member of the Uzbek security forces as saying that she had been poisoned at the start of November and buried in a shallow grave (Nov. 22).

The centre1.com story was widely sited across the media until her London-based son, also called Islam Karimov, released a statement two days later saying that she was alive and well.

“These are just rumours. She’s alive and still bound to a house arrest sentence ,” he told the BBC.

Even so, Ms Karimova has still not been seen in public.

On a trip to Tashkent last month by the Bulletin, though, it was clear that she still carries a degree of support from ordinary people, despite Western media referring to her as the most hated person in Uzbekistan – a reference based on a 2005 diplomatic cable sent from the US embassy in Tashkent to Washington.

Umida, 22, a Tashkent-based student, said that it would be good if the glamorous Ms Karimova returned to public life.

“Gulnara did lots of useful things in the sphere of culture and education and gave many opportunities to young people,” she said.

Dilmurad, 28, agreed. “I don’t know whether the accusations about her are right or wrong, but I would like to see many of the social projects she organised, the Forum Foundation, Art Week Style, Marathons, Fighting Breast Cancer, being held once again.”

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Kazakh police arrests senior officials

NOV. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The deputy head of the government’s Baiterek development corporation, Aslan Jakupov, was arrested with two other people for taking bribe of a around $80,000 over a house-building contract in Pavlodar, media reported. Media said that Aslan Jakupov is the son of a senior Kazakh MP. The case shows just how ingrained corruption is in Kazakhstan. The prosecutor said that Mr Jakupov was suspected of taking a series of bribes from construction companies in deals across the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

Kazakh police detains Aktobe FC chief

NOV. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anti-corruption police in Kazakhstan detained Dmitriy Vasilyev, director at Aktobe Football Club, for embezzling 300m ($882,000) of public funds, official media reported. Mr Vasiliyev allegedly paid illegal premiums for Aktobe’s performance in Kazakhstan’s Premier League. FC Aktobe is owned by the finance department of the local government.

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(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)