JAN. 25 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Georgia arrested Grigol Ivaneishvili, head of the Tskaltubo Municipality, for demanding a bribe of 250,000 lira ($95,000) in exchange for agreeing to sell the main municipal building. Georgia has won accolades for stamping out corruption over the past 15 years or so although activists have said that there is still much work to do.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 21 (The Conway Bulletin) — A parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan backed a proposal to force the country’s President to wear the traditional Kalpak hat on overseas trips. The Kalpak, a tall black and white felt hat, is a common sight in Kyrgyzstan where it is often worn by older men. It is considered a traditional sign of national pride.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Karin Strenz, a German MP from the ruling Christian Democratic Party, has become the first parliamentarian to be punished by his/her home country for taking cash and gifts from Azerbaijan between 2012-14, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
HRW said that on Jan. 18 Germany’s Bundestag had ruled that Ms Strenz had broken parliamentary rules in a “cash-for-lobbying” scandal that has been dubbed by anti-corruption campaigners as the “Azerbaijani Laundromat”. Ms Strenz faces a fine of up to $68,000. She has also faced calls from within the Christian Democratic Party to resign.
But, critically for HRW, Ms Strenz is the only one of 16 members of the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) to be punished by their national parliaments since being thrown out of PACE for taking the gifts and cash in exchange for defending Azerbaijan’s human rights record.
In a statement, Hugh Williamson, HRW’s director for Europe and Central Asia, said: “This is the most shocking aspect…Let’s hope politicians in Spain, Belgium, and other parliaments hit by the scandal will quickly follow the Bundestag’s lead. It’s about standing up for human rights in Azerbaijan, and in Europe as a whole.”
Last year, PACE published a report that described a patronage and influence network set up by Azerbaijan to help it steer debates in the Assembly where people were openly criticising Baku’s human rights record.
Over the past decade, Azerbaijan has jailed dozens of opposition activists and journalists for financial crimes and drug smuggling, charges that many have said have been fabricated.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is sensitive to criticism from Europe, particularly because, at the time, he had been trying to secure a major gas supply deal.
The PACE report in 2018 said that Italian Luca Volonte was at the centre of the 2.4m euro corruption scandal to buy support in the Assembly for Azerbaijan.
He is being investigated in Italy for corruption, although a court in Milan cleared him of money laundering February 2018.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
TBILISI/Jan. 30 (The Conway Bulletin) — Seven construction workers living in a single-room apartment in Tbilisi died from carbon monoxide poisoning, bringing to 13 the number of people killed in the Georgian capital this month from gas leaks or explosions.
Only a few days earlier ministers had said that they wanted to make gas leak sensors obligatory in residential apartments. Georgian media said that the foreman from the construction site that the men were working discovered their dead bodies when he went to investigate why they hadn’t turned up to work.
Earlier this month a gas explosion killed four people and a gas leak killed two people in Tbilisi. Campaigners have said that although Georgia is experiencing a construction boom off the back of a growing economy and a booming tourism sector, it has lagged behind on safety standards.
Last year, two tourists from Oman also died from carbon monoxide poisoning in their Tbilisi hotel room. Media reports said that in 2016-18, 87 people died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Georgia.
Georgia’s construction industry will also come under scrutiny. In 2018 there were several deaths from accidents on construction sites and questions will be asked as to why seven workers were sharing a one-room apartment. Media reported that a makeshift boiler was the cause of the leak that killed the seven men. Georgia’s interior ministry declined to say whether they were migrant workers or Georgians.
Kazakh company KazTransGaz supplies gas to residential blocks in the city. It issued a statement denying any responsibility for the accident.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 25 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank cut its interest rate to 6.75% from 7% and said that is was likely that further rate drops would follow because of sluggish inflation, despite a projected increase in economic growth and consumer growth. In an interview with Reuters, Georgian Central Bank chief Koba Gvenetadze said that inflation was ticking along at 1.5% compared to a target inflation of 3%. Mr Gvenetadze said interest rates were likely to drop to 6% or 5%.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to focus its foreign policy more closely on generating business opportunities, a departure from its previously stated aim of promoting world peace. The new strategy was unveiled by deputy foreign minister Roman Vassilenko, who said that the country’s foreign policy was going to be galvanized around generating more trade opportunities, and investment and development minister Zhenis Kassymbek, who said Kazakhstan wanted to open up 10 more trade missions in Russia, Central Asia and China this year (Jan. 22/29).
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — A pro-president Kazakh parliamentary party tabled a motion to rename Kazakhstan as the Kazakh Republic, as the country had been known in the first few months after the break up of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Proposals made by pro-president parties are often, but not always, approved by the Presidential Administration on behalf of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev before they are aired.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 28 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan extradited Kazakh Artur Trofimov, a former executive at BTA Bank, to Kazakhstan for suspected money laundering and embezzlement. BTA Bank was a bank that the Kazakh government had to buy in 2008/9 to rescue it from bankruptcy. Its former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is currently in Paris after appealing against an extradition order. A French judge agreed with his argument that he was at risk of torture if he was returned to Kazakhstan. Since fleeing Kazakhstan in 2009, Ablyazov has turned himself into the leading critic of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
ALMATY/Jan. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — — The Kazakh government will bail out Tsesnabank, the country’s second-largest bank, for the second time in six months, once again highlighting the fragility of Kazakhstan’s financial system.
The $1.6b bailout prompted an outburst from President Nursultan Nazarbayev that finance officials and the Central Bank were “cowards” and were not doing enough to protect the system from conflicts of interests and poor bank owners.
“You are just cowards, not cabinet ministers!” Reuters quoted Mr Nazarbayev telling cabinet ministers and Central Bank officials at a meeting. “Are your hands and knees shaking too much to make a decision? What are you doing here then?”
Mr Nazarbayev is particularly sensitive about the strength of Kazakhstan’s banks. He ordered the Central Bank to tighten up its regulations of the banks after the 2008/9 Global Financial Crisis, when the Kazakh government had to buy a handful of bankrupt banks, but an economic downturn in 2014/17 showed up the sector’s continued weakness.
Some banks did prove resilient in the downturn, but the government was still forced to bail out some the more heavily-indebted larger banks and also allow a handful of smaller banks to go bankrupt.
This has hit the government’s resources, dented its wider image for financial competence and worried ordinary people who have drawn down their bank deposits.
Tsesnabank, which is owned by Adilbek Zhaksybekov, received a $1.2b bailout in September. Mr Zhaksybekov is a close confidant of Mr Nazarbayev and his former Chief-of-Staff.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign ambassadors and senior government officials in Kazakhstan opened the largest solar power plant in the region at Saran in the centre of the country. The $137m project was funded by the EBRD and has the capacity to generate 100MW of power. At the opening, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, said that the government wants to generate 3% of its power through renewable energy by 2020, 20% by 2030 and 50% by 2050.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019