Chinese hands on Kazakh oil. The battle against corruption
For days, the oil companies’ workers have been on strike demanding an increase in salaries and to criticize the sale of wells and extraction to foreigners, especially Chinese. Corruption among executives and politicians. According to Transparency International, the country is in 94th place, among the most exposed to corruption.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - A "social pillory" to punish the corrupt, making them sweep the streets and wear vests with the words "Repaying my debt to society". This was the idea making the rounds yesterday at the meeting of the Agency for the fight against corruption in Kazakhstan.
The president of the agency, Alik Shpekbaev, proposed adopting this measure for small and medium-sized corruption crimes. "This measure is used with some success in several OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), for example in Great Britain those found guilty wear bright vests with similar writings, and have to carry out similar manual services on the street" - explained Shpekbaev. In his opinion, such a measure has a great psychological effect, and allows society to face its anti-heroes.
Just two days ago Transparency International published the Corruption Diffusion Index for 2020. Kazakhstan came in at 94th position, climbing almost 20 places, while remaining in the range of countries most exposed to corruption, on a par with Brazil, Ethiopia, Peru and others. According to the authors of the survey, "corrupt and authoritarian regional leaders are also using the pandemic to weaken the vigilance of public spending, while limiting civil liberties".
For days the country has been facing several large scale strikes linked to corruption. The more than 100 workers of KMK Munaj, who work on oil wells in the Aktyubinsk region, have been on strike since January 25 and are demanding a 100% increase in salary (photo 2).
Strikes are also very frequent in other companies in the sector. A historic oil executive, Mendesh Salikov, explained to Azattyk correspondents that the most felt problem, along with the corruption of executives and politicians, are the concessions to foreigners, which make companies run by people "who don't even know the smell of oil ".
In fact, in the Aktyubinsk area almost everything is in the hands of the Chinese, who are very reluctant to meet the demands of local workers. The average salary of a KMK worker does not even reach 300 euros per month, for a very strenuous job, in the mud and in the open air. In an office in the city, an employee would earn the same or even more. The workers remain at the wells for several days in a row, sleeping in tiny wagons without any change of air crowded in 8-10 at a time (photo 3). Not to mention that Kazakh workers are paid much less than their foreign colleagues in the same company, and according to Kazakh laws, up to 50% of foreigners can be employed. The strikes want to urge the local and regional governments to make more demands on foreign investors, especially Chinese.
Data indicates that Kazakhstan extracts about 90 million tons of oil per year, of which 80-85% ends up abroad, in China, the USA and Italy in particular, then also in several other countries, which are often even the owners of oil wells.
KMK president Van Tzinbao arrived at the Aktyubinsk office on January 28 to meet the strikers, but so far no agreement has been reached, also due to the absence of delegated interlocutors: the workers are asking to be heard all together. Tsinbao says the property has already done a lot by not cutting wages further, in the face of losses due to the collapse in the price of a barrel during the pandemic, which dropped to $ 18.
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03/09/2021 17:43
20/01/2022 09:03
