Tag Archives: government

Kazakhstan cuts government ministries

AUG. 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – This is the age of austerity and when money is tight, costs have to be trimmed.

That’s certainly the message Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev was sending out when he announced that he was merging several ministries.

“It is hard to understand, why one government body must be responsible for oil and gas, while another one deals with solid energy resources, the third department controls the power grid and the fourth one the nuclear industry,” Reuters quoted Mr Nazarbayev as saying. “This is why I believe it is time to concentrate the entire energy sector in the hands of one person.”

He appointed his ally Vladimir Shkolnik head of a new super Energy Ministry that merged the Oil and Gas Ministry, the Environmental Protection Ministry and the Ministry for Industry.

Kazakhstan’s economic growth has slowed due to sanctions on Russia over its interference in Ukraine and the failure of the giant Caspian Sea oil field Kashagan to start producing.

Mr Nazarbayev’s downsizing didn’t stop with the energy sector. He disbanded the Agency for Fighting Financial Crimes and gave its responsibilities to the Agency for Civil Affairs and also cut the Ministry for Emergencies, handing its duties to the Interior Ministry.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 195, published on Aug. 13 2014)

Ex-mayor arrested in Georgia

JULY 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police arrested the former mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava, for money laundering. Supporters of Mr Ugulava denounced the allegations as politically motivated and part of a plot to blacken the reputation of senior officials linked to the administration of former president Mikheil Saakashvili.

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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Prominent Georgian politician dies

JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Eduard Shevardnadze, a foreign minister of the Soviet Union and president of independence Georgia, died in a Tbilisi aged 86.

Tributes poured in from around the world for one of Georgia’s most recognisable modern-day politicians.

Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili described Shevardnadze as “one of the most distinguished politicians of the 20th century.”

His friend and political ally, the former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said: “He was an important contribution to the foreign policy of perestroika and was an ardent supporter of new thinking in world affairs.”

From Washington, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State said: “(Shevardnadze) played an instrumental role with President Gorbachev, President Reagan, and Secretary Shultz in bringing the Cold War to an end.”

But Shevardnadze leaves behind a mixed legacy.

As Mr Gorbaechev’s surprise choice as foreign minister for the Soviet Union in 1985, Shevardnadze was instrumental in rolling back Communism. He helped pull the Soviet military out of Eastern Europe and Afghanistan; gave a taciturn nod to the reunification of Germany.

Shevardnadze quit in 1990 because he feared a reactionary response but was persuaded back at the end of 1991, becoming the last foreign minister of the Soviet Union.

As president of independent Georgia, though, Shevardnadze’s reputation is far more ambiguous. He governed from 1993 until a revolution in 2003 toppled him. That revolution, later dubbed the Rose Revolution, ushered Mikheil Saakashvili into power and his staunchly pro-Western agenda.

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(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Kazakh President agrees pension reform

JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Kazakhstan has gently reformed its state pension plan without creating too much of a fuss.

Reform of the generous Soviet-era pension scheme is a particularly thorny issue across the former Soviet Union. Armenia’s government resigned in April because of protests against its proposed changes to the pension scheme and last year in Kazakhstan, a minister resigned after suggesting that women should work for as long as men.

Now though, it looks as if the Kazakh government has gently pushed through the changes it needs to make.

State media reported that President Nursultan Nazarbayev had signed into law a plan to modernise pensions.

The basic premise of the new pension plan, which won’t come into effect until 2016, is that employers will pay the equivalent of 5% of their employees’ salaries to the government. This, media said, will be used by the government to cover a current shortfall in the pension scheme.

So, in total, Kazakh workers will from 2016 effectively contribute the equivalent of 15% of their salary to the government’s pension pot. Employees will pay 10% and companies another 5%.

As the increased pension contribution comes from companies, rather than from workers, it’s unlikely to trigger public protests. Analysts, though, have said that the pension hole has become so big that the Kazakh government may also decide to increase direct employee contributions. That may cause trouble.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Kazakh Air Astana plans IPO

JUNE 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Astana will aim for an IPO within three years, Peter Foster, its CEO, said, according to media. Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund owns 51% of Air Astana and BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) owns 49%. The Kazakh government has been looking to privatise various companies it owns.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Tajikistan arrests researcher

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajik officials arrested Alexander Sodiqov, a 31-year old Tajik academic affiliated to the University of Toronto in Canada, and accused him of spying.

Mr Sodiqov was carrying out research in the Tajikistan’s restive Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) when Tajik security agents detained him.

Tajik officials are traditionally jittery about anyone asking awkward questions in GBAO, where Dushanbe’s authority is weak. Badakhshanis fought against government forces during a five-year civil war in the mid-1990s that President Emomali Rakhmon, eventually won.

Ever since, though, peace has been fragile. In July 2012, around 50 people died in fighting when the authorities tried to arrest a local chief who they accused of drug trafficking. Earlier this year more violence killed three people in Khorog, the regional capital and the scene of Mr Sodiqov.

Human rights groups and the British and Canadian governments have all said they are concerned about Mr Sodiqov’s well-being.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)

Tajikistan blocks YouTube,Facebook

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Tajikistan have blocked access to both YouTube and Facebook, betraying their fear of the web.

With Tajikistan’s major internet providers offering inconsistent explanations for the connection breakdown, many people reached the conclusion that the state’s communications service is behind the block.

It’s a tactic they have used previously.

Tajikistan blocked YouTube when violence broke out in the eastern province of Gorno-Badakshan in 2012, and again last year when a clip of President Emomali Rakhmon singing drunk at his son’s wedding went viral.

Umrana, 23, a Tajik blogger now living in Bishkek said that despite internet penetration of less than 10% in Tajikistan, its appeal to the aspirational middle class is what worries the government most.

“There is a legend that an Austria-Hungarian Emperor wouldn’t allow construction of railroads because he thought it would transport the French revolution. Our emperors are the same,” he said. “When they think of YouTube, they think of movement, unrest, threats.”

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Georgian Dream wins regional election

JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Georgia’s ruling party Georgian Dream has completed its clean sweep and defeated former President Mikheil Saakashvilil’s United National Movement (UNM) party in local elections.

Official results have not yet been published from Sunday’s local election but preliminary figures put Georgian dream ahead in most regions.

Overall, victory for Georgian Dream appears emphatic, pulling in 50.8% of the national vote compared to the UMN’s 22.4%, according to the election commission.

Georgian Dream is the party of Georgia’s richest man Bidzina Ivanishvili. It surged to power two years ago in a remarkable parliamentary election in which it defeated a seemingly indomitable UNM.

Last year, Georgian Dream also won a presidential election, propelling Giorgi Margvelashvili to power, and now victory in local governments completes its domination.

The UNM complained that irregularities had tarnished the election but European observers passed it as a legitimate expression of the popular will.

In Tbilisi, the Georgian Dream mayoral candidate will have to compete in a second round vote, but only because he failed, just, to take more than 50% of the votes.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Police shot at in Armenia

JUNE 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A supporter of Armenia’s nationalist party Tsegakron opened fire at police with an air pistol outside a courthouse in Yerevan where the party’s leader was standing trial, media reported. The leader of Tsegakron, Shant Harutiunian, was arrested in November after clashes with police.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)

Armenia’s government suggests pension reforms

JUNE 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The thorny issue of pension reform returned to centre stage in Armenia after the new government submitted a proposal that watered down unpopular reforms.

Earlier this year Armenia’s government resigned over the unpopularity of its changes to the pension system which came into effect on Jan. 1. The new law stated that people born after 1973 pay 5% of their salaries into a government scheme, a sum matched by the government.

Thousands of people demonstrated against this plan and the Constitutional Court eventually deemed it illegal and demanded that the new law was amended by Sept. 30.

Armenia was effectively plunged into a political crisis — and the issue of how to reform the out-of-date pension system was still unresolved.

Now the new government of Hovik Abrahamyan is trying to tackle the problem.

It has proposed that the scheme would only be obligatory for public servants who will also have their salaries raised from July 1. It’s a brave proposal and one that may gain traction. Like other states across the former Soviet Union, Armenia needs to reform its overly-generous state pension scheme and also avoid major public discontent.

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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)