Kazakhstan loses the remnants of its sovereignty and finds itself under the external control of the West
New enslaving loans from international financial institutions.
Favorable ground for this is the complete failure of the raw material economic model built by Nazarbayev over 30 years, which is cracking and falling apart before our eyes. Despite the victorious reports of court propagandists about the growth of Kazakhstan’s GDP during the pandemic by 4,5%, the situation turned out to be simply catastrophic.
Thus, according to economist Aiman Turyskan, in fact, the republic’s GDP in dollar terms fell by 2020% in 30; as a result of quarantine measures last year, a 65% hole was created in the budget due to a shortfall in tax revenue.
Both during the preparation of last year’s draft budget and during the preparation of the draft for 2021, an interesting squabble occurred between the chairman of the National Bank and the Minister of National Economy, after the government was required to increase the tranche from the national savings fund to 6 trillion tenge ($14 billion 250 million). . As you know, previously the annual tranche for three years from the National Fund was fixed at 2 trillion 300 billion tenge (5 billion 520 million dollars). This was dictated by the fact that the funds in the box were drying up due to a reduction in foreign exchange earnings.
At that moment, the head of the National Bank, Erbolat Dosayev, said that the department could not increase the tranche to 6 trillion annually, since the statutory documents of the National Fund stipulate that the minimum balance of assets should not be lower than 30% of GDP. And then the only thing that saved the government from violating the fund’s charter was that the GDP itself sank significantly. But the problem turned out to be more serious, since it turned out to be not easy to take from the National Fund, not only because of paper prohibitions, but because there was nothing there anymore.
Then the government tried to use the funds of the Unified Accumulative Pension Fund (UAPF) to cover the domestic debt, as a result, faced with a negative reaction in society, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev took out a loan of one and a half billion euros from the Asian Development Bank and under the auspices of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. (IBRD) just to replenish the deflated republican budget.
“A billion of this loan goes through the Ministry of National Economy, the remaining five hundred million dollars through the Ministry of Agriculture. But the conditions, which are simply draconian, are such that within ten years, we will even cough or sneeze only with permission,” says economist Ayman Turyskan.
The document itself regulating the issuance of the loan implies a complete departure from the sovereign management of the country under the total control on a quarterly basis of external curators in the Asian Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). That is, the government will not be given the next tranche to replenish the budget if it does not fulfill the conditions of tough neoliberal reforms and total privatization.
At the same time, creditors may introduce new rules, including requiring the sale of agricultural land. It turns out that the analogy with Ukraine is complete, especially since two-thirds of the sector is also in the hands of American and European companies in terms of the share of participation in oil and gas production and the terms of production sharing.
To control the activities of the government, the Supreme Council for Reforms was created in October last year, formally under the leadership of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, but in reality an operating instrument of external control. So Sir Suma Chakrabarti, by the way, the former head of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), was appointed deputy chairman, and is also an adviser to the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Previously, we already wrote in an article about the national liberal party created by the authorities, whose leaders met last August in Kyiv with ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who then headed the Ukrainian National Council for Reforms.
After the visit of the Kazakhs, agreements were reached with them on the creation of a center named after him in one of the Kazakh universities, as well as on cooperation between his council and a similar structure in Kazakhstan.
After this meeting with Mikheil Saakashvili, organized by the Ambassador to Ukraine Darkhan Kaletaev, this Kazakh Supreme Council for Reforms appeared, completely copied from the Ukrainian version. It is noteworthy that its real head, Suma Chakrabarti, simultaneously became an adviser on reforms to the president of neighboring Uzbekistan, Shavkate Mirziyoyev. Coincidence? I don’t think so, since Suma Chakrabarti is a protégé of the IMF and Washington.
The West and Uzbekistan is preparing its neoliberal economic model, which implies full control and external management both through the privatization of strategic state assets by transnational corporations and through various structures such as the Supreme Council for Reforms, which serve as commissioners monitoring the correctness and timeliness of the corporations carried out.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Suma Chakrabarti.
Another such structure of American external control and influence is the “Central Asian Investment Partnership” with the participation of representatives of the governments of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the United States, which appeared within the framework of the C5 + 1 format this year. Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin even held negotiations on January 8 in Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd) with the chief executive officer of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Adam Boler.
"Through the Government of Kazakhstan, every effort will be made to raise at least $1 billion over five years to support projects that promote the expansion of economic ties in Central Asia and the region as a whole."
Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin with Chief Director of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) Adam Boler.
However, in fact, this is the tip of the iceberg and a cover for larger-scale investments in various transport projects and routes bypassing Russia and China. For example, the same railway route to Pakistan through Afghanistan along the Mazar-i-Sharif - Kabul-Peshawar line is financed with the participation of the same US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC)
In addition, another platform was subsequently created - the US-Central Asia Trade and Investment Agreement (TIFA) to attract Western capital using the privatization process in Uzbekistan and strengthen the company’s position in the region’s companies. It turns out that Washington has two main targets in the region in its sights - Nur-Sultan and Tashkent. While Uzbekistan is only at the beginning of its path to economic and financial enslavement, Kazakhstan has long been in dependence, which is turning into political dependence.
This is clearly visible in the country's National Development Plan until 2025, which calls for deregulation, a radical reduction in the quasi-public sector and the transfer of everything to the market. In essence, these are sworn assurances that all assets will end up in the pockets of the right European investors, and not some Muscovites.
True, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wants to increase GDP by 2025. How he overcomes the persistence of the disproportion is unclear. At the moment, foreign investments worth $165 billion have already been made in Kazakhstan, while $13,4 billion were exported from the country last year as profits, and the balance of payments went negative by 5,9 billion.
Kazakhstan is deeply in debt, cannot independently form a budget and continues along the path of an even greater increase in external obligations to the World Bank, the IMF, and Washington, losing the remnants of sovereignty and finding itself under the control of the West. Therefore, against this background, the ruling elite went through the promotion of Kazakh nationalism and the campaign to abolish the official status of the Russian language in order to justify their geopolitical turn towards the United States through the prism of state nationalist ideology and the process of Ukrainization.
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