Tag Archives: corruption

Uzbek corruption probe undermines TeliaSonera

SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TeliaSonera last week sounded its retreat from Central Asia after trying to fight back against allegations of corruption and bribery made against its companies in the region over the past three years.

It’s a humbling moment for Telia- Sonera, the Stockholm-based mobile operator, that once had ambitions to dominate the South Caucasus and Central Asia region.

The company which has most undermined TeliaSonera’s reputation and made its position untenable was Ucell, its Uzbek subsidiary.

Prosecutors across Europe and in the US have launched investigations into alleged bribes of up to $325m that TeliaSoneria may have paid a Gibraltar-based company in 2007 and 2008

to access the Uzbek mobile phone market. The Gibraltar company was called Takilant and was closely linked to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

And if the allegations have been TeliaSonera’s undoing, they have also undermined Ms Karimova,

Once touted as a near-certain to replace her father, she is now under house arrest in Tashkent. Most of her allies are in jail and her assets in Europe have been seized.

When TeliaSonera does finally offload its Uzbek subsidiary it will have left an indelible mark on Uzbekistan’s history — in the mobile phone market, in corporate governance and in politics.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Georgia jails former mayor

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The day after winning a case against the Georgian government for keeping him in pre-trial detention for 14 months, Gigi Ugulava was found guilty of misspending public funds when he was the mayor of Tbilisi. He was jailed for 4-1⁄2 years. Separately, a judge acquitted Ugulava of money laundering.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Azerbaijani sets fire to himself as protest

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A taxi driver from Sumqayit, in western Azerbaijan, has died after setting himself on fire, media reported, an apparent final desperate protest against bully by officials and corruption.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said this was the seventh immolation in Azerbaijan since 2014.

Immolations in the region are a particularly sensitive issue because of the political connotations. The so-called Arab Spring erupted after an immolation by a frustrated and brow- beaten market seller set himself alight in front of a local government building in a provincial town in Tunisia in 2010.

The Arab Spring spread across North Africa, fuelling popular protests which eventually toppled governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

It also worried Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and some analysts have said that he started cracking down on opposition figures and media outlets after the Arab Spring undermined some of his allies.

The dead taxi driver was named as 27-year-old Maqsad Suleymanov. The authorities in Sumqayit did not specify how he died but a mass of social media comments and eyewitness reports said he had set himself on fire.

Kazakhstan investigates drowning

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh authorities have launched an investigation into the drowning of four soldiers last week during an amphibious exercise on the Caspian Sea shore, media reported. Kazakhstan has pledged to improve and modernise its military. Like other armies in the former Soviet Union, allegations of corruption and bullying plague its armed forces.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Mobile operator TeliaSonera wants to sell C.Asia & S.Caucasus assets

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – TeliaSonera, the Swedish telecoms company, wants to sell its stakes in mobile phone companies across the Central Asia and South Caucasus region after a series of high-profile corruption and bribery allegations dragged down its operations.

The Stockholm-based company owns stakes in Azercell, Geocell, Ucell, Kcell and Tcell and analysts said that any telecoms company looking to pick up a bargain may be able to buy its assets cheaply.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

US says graft is a problem in Armenia

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the US Ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, said that corruption was still a major problem in the country. Mr Mills said that some progress had been made but that it was holding back the Armenian economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Kyrgyzstan accuses PM

SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s First Deputy PM Tayirbek Sarpashev accused some political parties of hampering the Oct. 4 parliamentary election by trying to illegally collect voters’ biometric data. Mr Sarpashev did not name the parties.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Georgia’s court rules on pretrial detention

SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that it was illegal to keep a person in pre-trial detention for more than 9 months. The ruling is a major victory for the former mayor of Tbilisi Giorgi Ugulava who is accused of corruption. He is a member of the UNM and has said the accusations are politically motivated. Mr Ugulava has been in pre-trial detention for 14 months, after one of the charges was altered.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Kazakh police arrests Kostanai governor

SEPT. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police arrested the governor of the Kostanai region in north Kazakhstan, Akhmetbek Akhmetzhanov, for corruption. Kazakh officials have arrested a handful of senior regional officials over the past year or so for corruption.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)

Senior Uzbek official talks of corruption blight

SEPT. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a conference in Tashkent this week, Deputy Premier Rustam Azimov said corruption and extortion were among the hurdles that private entrepreneurs face in Uzbekistan.

This is important because it is rare for government officials to admit that corruption blights Uzbekistan and its officials.

“Businesses in Uzbekistan are today experiencing a lot of problems related to the illegal interference in entrepreneurial activity. There is excessive bureaucracy, as well as bribery and extortion,” media quoted him as saying. Mr Azimov was speaking at national conference on the security forces’ role in reforming and diversifying the economy.

A Tashkent-based analyst said Mr Azimov’s comments may be a signal the government was about to launch an anti-corruption purge.

It may also be a way of deflecting problems that have hit Uzbekistan. Remittances have fallen by half and inflation is rising. Most of these problems are regional and linked to a weak Russian economy and a fall in oil prices, but the Uzbek government will want to shift responsibility.

Transparency International, the global anti-corruption watchdog, ranks Uzbekistan as one of the worst countries in the world for corruption.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)