NGO alleges Turkmen president conceals gas earnings

A British NGO said in a new report that the Turkmen leader, Saparmurat Niyazov, keeps most of the energy-rich Central Asian country’s natural gas earnings under his control in overseas and off-budget funds. Global Witness, an international organisation that works to expose the link between human rights abuses and natural resource exploitation, estimates that Turkmenistan’s natural gas export earnings reach over US $2 billion annually, but that citizens of the reclusive country have no information on the gas profits. The report, released on Monday, said that it was clear that the money was not being spent on the Turkmen population since the standards of healthcare, education and quality of life have deteriorated since its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. “The country’s income is mainly from gas revenues, but is not spent on the people. It’s funded overseas under Niyazov’s effective control so he can fund his personal cult with prestigious projects or reinvest in the gas industry. It’s off-budget funding and it’s only for political purposes,” Diarmid O’Sullivan, Global Witness campaigner, said from London on Tuesday. The former Soviet republic does not strive for democratisation and president-for-life Niyazov has created a personality cult in the sparsely populated country, imposing his personal eccentricities. Schools, streets and hospitals are named after him, his picture can be seen everywhere and the books in libraries and schools are mainly written by the totalitarian leader. “It seems that no money makes it into the national budget,” the Global Witness report said. The country is potentially wealthy, with natural gas reserves ranking among the top 10 in the world, but the Turkmen government is reticent about the revenues. The report further said that this opacity by “a repressive dictator who is entirely unaccountable to his own people for what he does with their money” results in “corruption, social decay, increased poverty and reinforcement of authoritarianism, which can ultimately lead to state failure and the spread of instability across regions”. “Niyazov has absolutely free hands. There is a lack of public accountability, which is a human rights abuse. With more public control, he would be more constrained. Niyazov has absolute power and can hire and fire, and change ministers whenever he wants,” O’Sullivan said. Most of the natural gas is sold to Ukraine and then resold to European countries, such as Germany. The report also said that the authoritarian leader had some $2 billion in the Foreign Exchange Reserve Fund (FERF) at Deutsche Bank. “We know several things and we have been in contact with various sources. The Turkmen government, well that is Niyazov himself, has one or more accounts in Deutsche Bank. Specific details are not clear because there’s no transparency”, O’Sullivan remarked. “We [Global Witness] don’t see any reason why they [Deutsche Bank] would do business with him and we are working on having banks check their clients. I don’t think any test would come out saying Niyazov is okay,” he added. A Deutsche Bank official declined to comment on the issue when asked by IRIN. O’Sullivan also criticised the European Union’s (EU) position in the former Soviet republic’s politics. “An interesting situation is also EU’s role. They accuse Belarus of human rights abuses, but discuss agreements with Turkmenistan, that has probably a worse human rights record. Why? It’s a simple answer - gas,” O’Sullivan said.