Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov cleaned up house, dismissing most of the Procurator’s offices top officials, among other senior government officials in what has been touted to be a crackdown on corruption. Last month, he dismissed General Prosecutor Yaranmyrad Yazmyradov, Prosecutor of Ashgabat Movlamberdy Garaev, and Deputy Minister of National Security for Ashgabat city over accusations of grand-scale corruption and abuse of office. Then, last week, Turkmenistan’s newly installed Prosecutor General, Amanmurad Khalyev, Yazmyradov’s replacement, a former Chair of the Supreme Court announced that a criminal investigation into Garaev, Ashgabat’s Prosecutor, showed gross violations of Turkmenistan’s laws, bribery, and illegal acquisition of property. Garaev pleaded guilty and testified against his accomplices. Subsequently, Berdymukhamedov dismissed all regional prosecutors, the Chairman of the Turkmenpagta State Concern (Turkmen cotton), Hakmyrat Annamyradov, the Chairman of the Turkmengallaonumleri State Association (Turkmen wheat products), Yalkapberdi Charyev, and the Chairman of the Main State Tax Service of Turkmenistan, Annaberdy Mamikov.
Berdymukhamedov also dismissed Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Akmurat Yegeleyev, who had been charged with oversight of the transport and communications sectors and served as Deputy Chairman of the State Commission for Emergency Situations, accusing him of taking a $600,000 bribe from the head of the Lebap province. Berdymukhamedov also dismissed the head of his administration and Vice Premier in charge of trade, Khojamukhammet Mukhamedov, for his son’s participation in a drunken brawl in public.
Seeking to instill some discipline in the government, Berdymukhamedov ordered that all five provinces of the country undergo inspections to ensure that presidential decrees are observed and that social and economic development programs are being implemented.
Berdymukhamedov received Mohammed Afzal, the Trustee of the Indo-Turkmenistan Friendship Society and the official representative of the Congress Party of India, and Gopinath Menon, the President of the Indo-Turkmenistan Friendship Society and senior adviser of Panacea Biotec company, to discuss cultural cooperation and partnership in the Turkmenistan – Afghanistan – Pakistan – India (TAPI) pipeline project. The TAPI project seems to be on hold since Pakistan refused to participate in a meeting last month in India, due to conflict on the Line of Control, the military control line between the Indian and Pakistani-controlled parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.
This week, Turkmenistan hosted Turkmentel 2013, an exhibition of telecommunications, telemetry, information technologies, and broadcasting equipment that brought in delegations from 28 countries, including the US, Russia, Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, China, among others. With the help of France’s Thales Alenia Space and the Chinese industrial company Great Wall, Turkmenistanwill launch its national satellite to broadcast to parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia by late 2014.
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