Kazakhstan loses control over strategic assets

Public Foundation Elge Qaitaru made a new appeal to the President of Kazakhstan and heads of autho­rized bodies.

The Elge Qaitaru Foundation this time rais­es the issue of the activ­i­ties of the Eurasian Resource Group (ERG), also known as ENRC, the Eurasian Group, which is owned by a trio of: Mr. Mashkevich (non-res­i­dent of the Republic of Kazakhstan), Mr. Shodiev (non-res­i­dent of the Republic of Kazakhstan) and Mr. Ibragimov.

In fact, the flag­ships of the Kazakh indus­try turned out to be a gift as part of the Eurasian Corporation of Natural Resources at one time:

Kazkhrom, Zhairemsky min­ing and pro­cess­ing plant, Aluminum of Kazakhstan, Sokolovsk-Sarbay min­ing and pro­cess­ing pro­duc­tion asso­ci­a­tion, Aktobe pow­er plant, Pavlodar pow­er plant Pavlodar‑1, Aksu pow­er plant, East coal mine of the Ekibastuz coal basin.

The Elge Qaitaru Foundation announced the need for a com­pre­hen­sive review of the activ­i­ties of the ERG group since the trans­fer of Kazakh enter­pris­es to man­age­ment, includ­ing the legal­i­ty of their pri­va­ti­za­tion for noth­ing. There was a delib­er­ate depre­ci­a­tion of enter­pris­es with large indus­tri­al cap­i­tal. For decades, the ERG group has received mil­lions of dol­lars of ben­e­fits and pref­er­ences in tax­es and tar­iffs, evad­ed tax­es, and received loans under gov­ern­ment guarantees.

ERG, 40% of which is owned by the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, is reg­is­tered in the State of Luxembourg. The cur­rent state of the com­pa­ny is alarm­ing due to the high debt bur­den of pri­mar­i­ly Kazakhstani assets. Consolidated debt at the end of 2020 was more than $8 bil­lion, of which about $5 bil­lion relat­ed to the assets in Kazakhstan.

The Elge Qaitaru Fund in its appeal calls on the Government to solve the prob­lem of the encum­brance of Kazakhstani assets of ERG with oblig­a­tions to for­eign banks by return­ing the funds to the dis­pos­al of the for­eign par­ent com­pa­ny. In addi­tion, it is nec­es­sary to con­sid­er the issue of per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty of autho­rized offi­cials who allowed the with­draw­al of bil­lions of dol­lars from the Republic of Kazakhstan.

_______________________________________________________________

October 27, 2022, а press con­fer­ence of the Public Fund Elge Qaitaru.

Speakers: Orazaly Yerzhanov, Iskander Beisembetov.