World media against granting credits from Western taxpayers’ pockets to Azerbaijan’s corrupt authorities

February 2, 2016 By administrator

bnbn.thumb An International Monetary Fund team is currently on a “fact-finding” mission at the Azerbaijan government’s request, The Financial Times reports.

According to the report, investigative journalists from the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and elsewhere have for years observed the ruling clan and its acolytes dominate through opaque business practices and autocratic abuses.

Reportedly, a WikiLeaks cable sent from global intelligence company Stratfor via SIPRNet, the classified US Department of Defence computer network, commented that Azerbaijan is run like a medieval feudal system shared by several clans.

According to the article, a low oil price threatens this cosy arrangement and has sparked popular protests. This is no small development given the government’s own hostility towards an oppressed society. OCCRP journalist Khadija Ismayilova has just begun a seven-year jail sentence after regularly exposing the corruption at the heart of the Aliyev regime — joining nearly 100 other journalists and activists behind bars.

“Western taxpayers should be appalled that they are being asked to fix the problems of the feudal elite. OCCRP has revealed the regime’s corruption in exhaustive detail,” the authors of the article point out.

Meanwhile, according to the article, corporate ownership information has been confidential in Azerbaijan since 2012. This means there is no simple way to check who benefits from any transactions with the government. These moves are designed to prevent any public scrutiny or government accountability. A bailout without stringent reform will be caught in the same web of systematic corruption. IMF and the World Bank must avoid siphoning yet more money, this time from western taxpayers, into the coffers of a wealthy autocracy.

The website of the American TV channel CNBC writes that more countries are expected to join oil-rich but cash-poor Azerbaijan and Nigeria in asking for international financial help if the price per barrel continues to show no sign of recovering. “After Azerbaijan and Nigeria requested international financial aid in January as oil prices wallowed around, and even dipped below, the $30 a barrel mark, all eyes are on other struggling oil-producing nations to see who might be next to go cap in hand to such organisations as The World Bank or International Monetary Fund,” CNBC reports.

According to the Economy Watch , Azerbaijan faces greater hardship than other commodity-driven nations because of the social and political unrest unravelling as the economy falters. Police throughout the Caspian country have been dispersing unruly protesters who are angry over skyrocketing unemployment and price hikes.

S&P expects inflation to rise to 15% in 2016, which is well above the traditional two percent seen in previous years. Officials first responded to the crisis by announcing an austerity program that would last for three years, but only time will tell if such policies will work. President Ilham Aliyev announced a 30% increase in public salaries and pensions, a dangerous promise to make at a time of low funds and public outrage. Policymakers risk stoking further unrest if they fail to deliver on their promises, which seem more likely given the current state of the economy, Economy Watch points out.

The website of The Jamestown Foundation, a US non-governmental think tank, writes that the Azerbaijani public felt the negative impact of the devaluation of the country’ national currency. Panic and frustration led to protests by local populations across several regions countrywide against the increase of prices of essential goods and unemployment. Although the protests are not politically motivated in the narrower sense, and they developed sporadically, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General’s Office and as well as the Ministry of Interior issued a joint statement accusing the opposition parties and radical and religious extremist groups of organising the protests.

“The population’s concerns have only increased due to the multiple and often contradictory statements by government officials, as well as the obvious breaches of promises. Essentially, the absence of a clear anti-crisis plan and agenda for economic liberalisation has fuelled public concern that the government is not acknowledging the reality of the crisis,” the foundation writes.

Serbian Police Arrest 80 Corrupt Officials, Including Former Minister

December 26, 2015 By administrator

Serbian law enforcement has detained 80 officials on corruption charges, including former Minister of Trade and Services Slobodan Milosavljevic, Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said.

BELGRADE (Sputnik) — The detainees are suspected of money laundering, power abuse, bribery, forgery, as well as fraud in public procurement.

“The operation was undertaken in order to counter financial crime and corruption, particularly related to the state bodies,” Stefanovic said Saturday during a press conference.

In total, 80 officials have caused damage to Serbia of almost $110 million since 2004.

The local police are set to detain at least 39 corrupt officials in the coming days.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner accused of corrupt ties with Azerbaijan

September 28, 2015 By administrator

The scandal around the sensational and suspicious congressional visits to Azerbaijan takes new turn in the U.S. Congress. CNN reported that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Republican Party member, announced his resignation and said he intended to leave Congress at the end of October.

The Azerbaijani website Haqqin.az claims that one of the reasons John Boehner resigned is an Azerbaijan visit of a group of congressional representatives in May 2013, which was sponsored by SOCAR (the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan).

Haqqin.az notes that the U.S. Congress regulations demand the parliamentarians to agree on such trips at the Office of Congressional Ethics. The scandal around the congressional trip to Azerbaijan burst out long ago. However, it has not calmed down yet, taking new turn with the Ethics Committee saying it found no violations in the American legislators’ Baku trip in 2013. The website reports about a possible reinvestigation of the congressional representatives’ Azerbaijan trip after Boehner’s resignation.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) published an article by Peter Flaherty, who claims John Boehner’s Speakership was a setback for Congressional ethics. “He backslid on a number of important reforms, and helped to return the Ethics Committee to its traditional role of covering up wrongdoing by incumbent members of Congress,” Flaherty writes.

He points out that Boehner ally Rep. Charles Dent (R-PA), the Chairman of the Ethics Committee, is currently orchestrating a whitewash of apparent House rules violations related to a junket by ten House members to Azerbaijan in 2013. Flaherty highlights that Azerbaijan is “one of the most corrupt governments on earth.”

On July 31, the Ethics Committee announced that it had found “no evidence” that the ten broke House rules. It plans “no further action regarding this matter and considers it closed.” For ethics groups, however, the matter is far from closed. In fact, both liberal and conservative groups, along with reform advocates like Norm Ornstein, are demanding the Committee release a report on the trip compiled by a separate entity, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

According to the OCE report, the junket was sponsored by nonprofit groups, but was actually paid for by SOCAR. “We believe that the report will confirm that the Committee covered up obvious violations of House rules,” NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm asserted.
“It is no mystery what SOCAR wanted from Congress. A partner with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in the huge Shah Deniz gas field, it successfully sought an exemption from Iran sanctions,” Flaherty points.

The OCE report was referred to the Ethics Committee, but has not been made public. It was leaked to the Washington Post, which described its contents on May 13. The report alleges ten House members broke House Rules when they took the 2013 trip to a conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, courtesy of SOCAR. Also enjoying free trips were 32 staff members. Some House members offered the defense that they did not know SOCAR underwrote the trip, but the OCE investigators detailed how conference meeting rooms were festooned with banners with SOCAR’s logo, the author writes.

OCE apparently acted in response to a July 2014 story in the Houston Chronicle describing the trip. In addition to SOCAR, BP, ConocoPhillips and KBR also helped to pay the costs of the event, estimated at $1.5 million. Those costs included $100,000 for hotels, $75,000 for food and entertainment, and $1.2 million for travel and other expenses. NLPC provided significant background information for the Chronicle story, which described how nonprofit organizations were apparently used as fronts to launder the prohibited corporate funding.

Flaherty stresses that when sponsoring Congressional travel, nonprofit leaders must certify under oath that they have not received money from corporations that lobby Congress. Unlike House rules violations, lying under oath is criminal.
“Given the reformist bent and energy of many Tea Party-supported Republicans whose election made Boehner’s Speakership possible, it’s sadly ironic that Boehner preferred the old ways of doing business,” the author concludes.

Source: Panorama.am