Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Uzbek Police arrest GM Uzbekistan director

MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek police arrested Tokhirzhon Zhalilov, described by media as the managing director of GM Uzbekistan, and accused him of faking exports to Russia.

Mr Zhalilov, together with other officials, allegedly masterminded a scheme to send cars booked for export to Russia to Shymkent, a city in Kazakhstan near the border with Uzbekistan. Instead of being shipped on to Russia, these cars were sent back to Uzbekistan and re-sold. This, according to sources at Uzbekistan’s state-owned car-maker quoted by the Uzbek service of RFE/RL, allowed Mr Zhalilov to amass illicit funds, which he then hid offshore.

The Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta said that, despite promises made earlier this year, GM Uzbekistan had failed to deliver shipments of its new Ravon model by the end of April.

So far, only the US-funded RFE/RL and Rossiyskaya Gazeta have reported the alleged arrest. Uzbekistan’s prosecutor, also, has not confirmed Mr Zhalilov’s arrest.

GM Uzbekistan is a joint venture between US-based GM and state ownedUzavtosanoat.

It is one of the largest car producers in Central Asia and one of Uzbekistan’s largest industrial units.

It mainly exports to Russia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

Telenor official quits after Uzbek bribery investigation

MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Norwegian telecoms company Telenor said its CFO Richard Olav Aa and General Counsel Pal Wien Espen resigned after an internal investigation on alleged corruption at VimpelCom — of which Telenor owns 33% — in Uzbekistan. The investigation concluded that although there had not been any corruption within Telenor, weak structures within the company had allowed corruption within VimpelCom to exist. In February, VimpelCom admitted to paying $115m in bribes to officials in Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

US prosecutors finally name Uzbek Pres. daughter in corruption probe

APRIL 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The US named Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, as the beneficiary of bribes worth $550m taken between 2007 and 2013 from telecoms companies wanting access to the Uzbek market.

This was the first time that Ms Karimova, 43, has been named in connection with the corruption case since news of the deals became public three years ago.

It’s also a reminder of just how tightly President Karimov and his family ran Uzbekistan, seemingly viewing it as their personal fiefdom, and how telecoms companies, from Sweden’s TeliaSonera to US-listed VimpelCom, had to bribe their way into the market of 30m people.

TeliaSonera rebranded as Telia Company earlier this month. Both Telia and VimpelCom are the subject of investigations in the corruption cases. Telia is also trying to sell off its subsidiaries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

A Bloomberg News report from New York said that prosecutors had named Ms Karimova after previous requests to recover cash, which they said had been laundered, were ignored.

“Prosecutors made the request in a letter to a Manhattan federal court judge on Thursday (April 21), saying Karimova and the group failed to respond to a civil forfeiture complaint against three bank accounts,” Bloomberg reported.

Ms Karimova had previously only been referred to, rather obliquely, as: “Government Official A, a close relative of a high-ranking Uzbek government official.”

Being named in the reports will bring further international notoriety on Ms Karimova.

She had once been spoken of as a future leader of Uzbekistan, a label she appeared to wear lightly while she produced pop videos, hosted fashion shows and concocted her own perfume range.

Now Ms Karimova has disappeared from public sight, having been placed under house arrest in Tashkent two years ago.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

US prosecutors names Karimova “the most hated person in Uzbekistan”

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Once feted as a future Uzbek leader, and with an obvious taste for the limelight, Gulnara Karimova’s fall from grace has been sharp.

At the peak of her power and influence, she ran Uzbekistan’s top industrial conglomerate, Zeromax, owned the country’s biggest football team and was the Uzbek envoy to the United Nations in Geneva.

In her spare time, Ms Karimova designed clothes, developed perfume ranges for her own fashion label and produced whimsical music videos which starred, as a backing singer, French actor Gerard Depardieu, now more famous for drunken brawls on aeroplanes and for embracing former Soviet leaders shunned by the West.

But, despite the glamour, Googoosha, a nickname given to Ms Karimova by her father and mockingly adopted by ordinary Uzbeks, was described as the most hated person in the country.

A 2005 cable from the US embassy in Tashkent said that ordinary Uzbeks considered Ms Karimova to be “greedy and power hungry.”

“She remains the single most hated person in the country,” the author of the cable, then-ambassador Jon Purnell, wrote.

Since 2014, though, she has disappeared from public view, apparently incarcerated in a house in Tashkent. An international corruption scandal focused on payments made by mobile phone companies for access to Uzbekistan and an internal power struggle appear to have undermined Ms Karimova.

Pictures of her pleading with her guards and looking thin and drawn leaked out about a year ago, but little else has been seen or heard. Few ordinary Uzbeks care, though.

Eric McGlinchey, a professor at George Mason University, said that her public opulence had been the real reason behind her downfall.

“She wasn’t a quiet crook. She pursued a grotesquely extravagant lifestyle and that made her detested among both the ruling class and ordinary Uzbeks,” he said.

“Were she merely a quiet crook, revelations of hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore accounts could be overlooked.”

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

The Savitsky museum becomes Uzbekistan’s desert gem

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) NUKUS/Uzbekistan — This city, the capital of Karakalpakstan in west Uzbekistan, has yet to benefit from the shiny upgrades that have advanced the country’s larger cities.

A few new apartment blocks aside, there is little sign of redevelopment. There are no new malls and no new roads.

The airport is tiny and time warped, with just one conveyor belt for luggage. Just beyond the city limits is miles of parched desert scattered with saxaul trees, scrubby bush and abandoned poultry farms. It is a depressing place.

The one gem in Nukus’ crown is the Savitsky Museum.

Attracting a few thousand international visitors a year, it houses a 90,000-strong collection of world- class Russian avant-garde artworks. Igor Savitksy, a Kiev-born artist and collector, is celebrated for single handedly saving these works in the 1950s by hiding them away in Nukus, far from the disapproving eyes of the USSR’s fanatical leaders.

Recently the museum has been in the news after its long-serving and highly dedicated director, Marinika Babanazarova, was fired for unspecified reasons. To fans of the museum, it appeared that Nukus’ one shining light was in danger of going out.

As I toured the museum I met a curator who explained some of the more famous art pieces to me. Tentatively, I told her that I’d read the reports about Marinika being fired and I asked where she was now. The curator’s eyes fell to the floor.

“She is here in Nukus. We hope she will come back one day. We miss her, but we cannot break the system,” she said nervously.

She looked more hopeful when the conversation switched to the new wing of the museum which staff hope will attract more visitors.

Whether it will bring back Marinika remains to be seen.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Uzbek President talks up Russia links

APRIL 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov flew to Russia to hold high- level talks with his counterpart Vladimir Putin focused on security along Central Asia’s southern border with Afghanistan.

Just weeks after Russia ratified an agreement to pardon most of Uzbekistan’s debt, Mr Karimov’s visit looked like a show of support for Mr Putin.

“There are certain attempts to find a solution to the Afghan issue without Russia. I believe this is wrong,” Mr Karimov told the press after meeting Mr Putin.

On trade, Mr Karimov said a row between Russia and Turkey over the shooting down of a fighter jet over Syria last year may allow Uzbekistan to boost trade with Russia.

“Turkey today can not provide [fruits and vegetables] because of well known reasons. Now tell me, does Uzbekistan produce less fruit and vegetables?” Mr Karimov said, hinting that Uzbekistan might be the perfect substitute for Turkish goods.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Uzbekistan’s Savitsky Museum to open new wing

APRIL 29 2016, NUKUS/Uzbekistan (The Conway Bulletin) — The Savitsky Museum in Nukus, west Uzbekistan, will open a new wing in September which will increase its exhibition space by five times, a museum official told a Bulletin correspondent.

The opening of the new wing will be welcomed by art lovers who want to see more of one of the largest collections of Russian avant-garde art.

In an interview, a curator at the Savitsky Museum said: “We will open the new wing on Sept. 1, Independence Day. It will mean we get to show 15% of the art collection, rather than just 3%.”

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Gulf trade corridor becomes operational, Uzbek government says

APRIL 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s government said that an agreement signed in 2011 with Turkmenistan, Iran and Oman to establish what it described as a Central Asia-Persian Gulf Trade Corridor had finally become operational. The deal was agreed to boost trade between the regions. Some analysts, though, have derided the deal as window-dressing.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Lukoil starts Kandym work in Uzbekistan

APRIL 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian oil and gas company Lukoil said it had started construction work at the $3.3b Kandym Gas Processing Complex in south-west Uzbekistan, which will include gas wells, pipelines, compressor stations, storage facilities and a 80MW gas fired power plant. Lukoil will use gas from six fields it is developing with state-owned Uzbekneftegaz to fuel the new plant. Hyundai Engineering will supply the equipment for the plant

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)

Kazakh President meets Karimov

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew to Tashkent to meet with his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov to discuss regional security and economic ties. Both leaders emphasised good relations between the two countries. Mr Karimov told Mr Nazarbayev that “we need to synchronise our watches and go in the right direction”, a reference to working more closely together.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)