Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Police say $1.6b embezzled from Kazakhstan since 2013

JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s financial police unit has calculated that around 290b tenge (roughly $1.6b) has been embezzled since the beginning of 2013.

Rather ironically the head of the unit, Marat Akhmetzhanov, gave this gloomy assessment of the endemic nature of corruption in Kazakhstan on the eve of a celebration — the 20th anniversary of the formation of the Kazakh financial police.

“In the past year and a half more than 15,000 offences were registered by the Agency,” he said. “Almost 400 cases were opened in the last 18 months against oil theft and smuggling.”

Still, people trying to embezzle cash are being caught and many of these are state officials.

Tursunbek Omurzakov, a member of parliament, said that corruption was rampant.

“Bribery has become the major obstacle to foreign investment,” he said.

Of course none of this is new. The real challenge for Kazakhstan is whether it is going to be able to do anything about it.

As Sarah Lain, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said schemes to embezzle money from businesses and to dodge tax in Kazakhstan had become relatively sophisticated.

“The use of complex networks of offshore companies, proxy owners, ‘fixers’ and offshore bank accounts is common practice amongst the higher echelons of the Kazakh business elite,” she said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Kazakh Inmates slash themselves

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Four prisoners at a jail near Astana have slashed their stomachs with knives to protest against squalid living conditions and humiliating treatment from guards, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. Human rights groups often cite poor prison conditions and the abuse of inmates as a major problem in Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Kazakh court upheld fine on Kashagan

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – An appeals court in Atyrau upheld an earlier $730m fine against the consortium developing the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian for environmental damage. The fine was originally imposed for excessive gas flaring after an accident in September 2013.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Kzakhstan’s Kashagan repairs to cost billions

JUNE 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Replacing two corroding 90km-long gas pipelines at the Kashagan oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea will cost “several billion dollars” and delay the re-start of production until at least 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported quoting a person familiar with the project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Austrian police detain Kazakh president’s former son-in law

JUNE 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is enjoying a good run of chasing down his enemies in their overseas hideouts.

Austrian police detained Mr Nazrbayev’s former son-in- law, Rakhat Aliyev, in Vienna, a year after the authorities in France captured Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former chairman of BTA Bank.

Like Ablyazov, Mr Aliyev has been a vocal opponent of Mr Nazarbayev since he fled Kazakhstan in 2007.

Mr Nazarbayev is notorious for allowing his subordinates to enrich themselves but forbidding any challenge to his political powers. Mr Aliyev, who had been married to Mr Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, crossed this line and was forced into exile.

Reports said that he voluntarily turned himself in to the Austrian authorities. The question now is, will Austria extradite Aliyev to Kazakhstan this time?

It’s unlikely as reports have said that Austria has previously declined to act on an extradition request from Kazakhstan. This could be what Mr Aliyev wanted.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

Armenia-Azerbaijan relations heat up

JUNE 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia accused Azerbaijan of killing two of its soldiers along the border of the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh, raising tension around one of the South Caucasus most delicately-balanced flash-points.

Shootouts are common between the two countries around Nagorno-Karabakh, where a barely discernible peace is held together by a fragile 1994 UN-negotiated cease-fire, but the heightened war-mongering rhetoric from Armenia alarmed international observers.

Azerbaijan denied the accusations.

Both sides are playing to their internal audience. The problem for Armenia is that the rhetoric has serious geopolitical implications.

It wants to join the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union which also counts Belarus and Kazakhstan as members. Armenia has the support of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Its dispute with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has, though, caused some consternation. Media reported that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev raised objections to Armenia’s membership because of its dispute over Nagorno- Karabakh a the signing ceremony last month.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Kazakh embassy opened in Hanoi

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Continuing to expand its diplomatic reach, Kazakhstan opened its first embassy in Vietnam. Kazakhstan has been eager to spend some of its energy-generated wealth by boosting its presence overseas and has funded new embassies across the world. Asia and Africa have been priority embassy openings.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on June 11 2014)

Karimov criticises Eurasian Economic Union

JUNE 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov has criticised the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union as a thinly disguised effort to create a broader political group.

Mr Karimov is, perhaps, the first leader from Central Asia to offer such brazen criticism of the Eurasian Economic Union, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s pet projects.

Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg reported Mr Karimov saying that joining the Eurasian Economic Union would mean losing national independence.

“They say that they will only create an economic market and it won’t relinquish sovereignty and independence. Tell me, can political independence exist without economic independence?” Mr Karimov said according to 24.kg.

Of course, Uzbekistan is the most unilateral of the Central Asian countries and criticism from Tashkent of the Eurasian Economic Union is not unexpected but Mr Karimov’s comments are particularly barbed and the timing poignant.

Alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are also members of the Eurasian Economic Union which was signed into existence last month at a ceremony in Astana. But Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are all eager to join.

Many Western analysts have said that despite assurances from Mr Putin, the Eurasian Economic Union is little more than a thinly veiled effort by the Kremlin to extend its political power. Clearly Mr Karimov shares these views.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 188, published on JUNE 11 2014)

No devaluation says Kazakh Central Bank Chief

JUNE 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Rumours of another devaluation of the tenge triggered a spike in demand for dollars, media reported. The buying of dollars forced Kazakh Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov to step in and deny that another tenge devaluation was planned. Kazakhstan devalued the tenge by 20% earlier this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)

Kazakh city to become financial center

JUNE 2 2014 (Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan intends to build a centre for Islamic finance in Almaty, Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov said. Mr Kelimbetov said the centre would be modeled on the City of London and offer potential investors tax and visa benefits.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 187, published on June 4 2014)