A tax dispute is disrupting operations at the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz interim government is charging tax on fuel imports for Manas, and the US government is refusing to pay, in what has the potential to develop into a major diplomatic standoff between Bishkek and Washington.
The owner of a strategically important fuel storage depot in Kyrgyzstan claims he came under pressure to sell it after refusing to rent the facility to Red Star Enterprises Ltd.
Amid a congressional probe into its fuel contracting practices at the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan, the Pentagon now appears ready to open up what has been a no-bid system for suppliers.
The more digging that takes place around Red Star Enterprises Ltd and Mina Corp, companies at the center of a US congressional probe into Pentagon contracting practices in Kyrgyzstan, the murkier the companies’ corporate structures and affiliations get.
The former head of Manas International Airport in Kyrgyzstan is facing a corruption charge in connection with the sale of Aalam Services, the main fuel depot at Manas Airport, to Manas Aerofuels, a company allegedly controlled by Maxim Bakiyev, the son of the Central Asian nation’s ousted president.
Stonewalling looms as an issue in a US congressional investigation into Pentagon contracting practices at the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan. Congressional investigators appear to be receiving only a bare minimum of cooperation with various requests for documents.
The two enterprises at the center of a US congressional investigation into fuel contracting practices at Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Transit Center maintain an official mailing address at a low-rent London public housing complex. But the entities have retained the services of a super high-gloss Washington, DC, public relations firm that has strong connections to the Bush-Cheney administration.
Kyrgyzstan’s General Prosecutor’s Office is focusing its corruption investigation concerning fuel supplies at Manas Transit Center on companies allegedly controlled by Maxim Bakiyev, the son of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.
Contractors supplying jet fuel to the Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan were allegedly re-exporting Russian TS-1 jet fuel bought for use at the air base to third countries, the head of the Oil Traders Association of Kyrgyzstan asserts.
Top officials at the State Department in Washington are said to be "fuming" with US Embassy personnel in Bishkek for supposedly failing to maintain strong ties with erstwhile opposition politicians who now are leading figures in the Kyrgyz provisional government.
