The Tajik media reported that on 27 November, the Tajik Unitary Enterprise “Tajik Aluminum Company” (TALCO) halted its case against the ANSOL company. The case was initiated in December 2004 against former managers of Tajikistan’s biggest enterprise and the main source of the national income. The hearings were held in the London High Court. ANSOL has also renounced its claims against TALCO.
According to Radio Ozodi (Radio Liberty Tajik service), the TALCO officials stated that the ANSOL company in the period from 1996 to 2004 embezzled $500 million, which belonged to TALCO. ANSOL in response claimed that TALCO owes ANSOL an amount of $130 million.
TALCO is the only aluminum smelter in Central Asia and one of the biggest enterprises in its kind in the world. According to Russian information agencies, in 2007, TALCO produced 421 thousand tons of aluminum, and in 2008, the plant’s financial turnover will amount to $830 million.
Over the last several months, a number of international and Tajik media have reprinted articles by John Helmer, a well-known international economist who lives and works in Moscow. Helmer describe in details corruption and economic machinations in TALCO. Referring to the IMF reports and the court hearings in London, Helmer analyzes how the company’s revenues are being stolen. The author states that in 2006-2007, only 17 percent of the revenues went to the national treasury, and during the period from 2005 till now, Tajikistan has lost $1,145 billion – the money went away through tolling schemes and off-shores.
These figures are pretty high, given that in 2007, Tajikistan’s national budget (excluding international aid) was $610 million, and the current external debt has reached $1,5 billion. According to the Western media, the Tajik authorities have spent – according to different sources – from L.s.d.90 million to $200 million on the investigation (this amount mainly includes expenditures on lawyers, court hearings, etc.). It goes without saying that the money has been taken from Tajikistan’s national treasury.
Details of the recent settlement in London have not been made public. The Tajik media do not dare to “tread of forbidden ground”; the TALCO officials refuse to talk with foreign correspondents; and Nazarov, who lives in London and possesses decent property there, also declined to comment.
John Helmer in his latest article posted on Asia Times Online (http://www.atimes.com/) says that “…the ramifications of their [TALCO] victory have only started to be counted – in Dushanbe, at Rakhmon’s presidential palace, and in the board rooms of several international organizations, whose executives have been implicated in the frauds alleged in the court testimony, and documented in the evidence presented so far”.
Helmer continues: “The overnight agreement by the lawyers puts a stop to further disclosures in London, but the evidence remains for possible prosecution in Oslo, and internal investigations at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), who have been backing Rakhmon in the litigation that has now failed”.

In June 2008, the IMF issued a report ordering an independent international audit of TALCO’s accounts and ordered the establishment of “a special monitoring unit at the ministry of finance”, whose mandate will include identification in TALCO’s books of “untapped tax revenues and hitherto hidden contingent liabilities.”
The TALCO case is not an “unpleasant exception”. In spring 2008, the IMF in its report called the National Bank of Tajikistan (NBT) insolvent. During several years, the NBT management provided the international financial institutions with false data about Tajikistan’s national reserve funds in order to receive new soft loans.
Experts indicate that the Tajik public at large is very apathetic; everybody minds his own business, even when the issues concern huge economic or political scandals. Editors and correspondents are guided by the principles of self-censorship being afraid that their outlets would be closed by the authorities, or someone would be accused of libel, offence or defamation of a public official. There are several articles in Tajikistan’s Criminal Code establishing criminal responsibility for such kind of “crimes”.

Konstantin Parshin

Источник: NANSMIT