Former Kazakh President and former head of the country’s Security Council, Nursultan Nazarbayev, owns billions of dollars worth of banks, hotels, TV channels and other assets through a network of charitable foundations. This is stated in a joint investigation published on Wednesday, January 19, conducted by the Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime (OCCRP), the Kazakh edition of Vlast and the Kyrgyz edition of Kloop.
The investigation alleges that Nazarbayev, while still president, created four private charitable foundations with similar names and opaque reporting, and continues to manage them behind the scenes to this day. Formally, the foundations are engaged in charity – they popularize the Kazakh language and send gifts to children, but in addition to this, they manage large assets that actually belong to Nazarbayev.
These assets include banks, TV channels, hotels, a private jet worth over $100 million, a golf course, hotels, and billions of dollars in cash. “Among the less remarkable objects are warehouses, a pasta factory. For some time, there was even a landscaping company on this list,” the authors of the investigation note.
Elbasy’s assets
As the journalists found out, the Nazarbayev Fund, officially engaged in supporting education, owns a controlling stake in Jusan Technologies, which, in turn, owns online stores in Kazakhstan and Russia, mobile operators Kcell and Jusan Mobile, food distributors, shopping centers in Nur-Sultan and Kostanay, brokerage companies. The company’s assets are estimated at $7.8 billion.
The private aircraft Airbus ACJ320neo, which is called the “flying penthouse”, was purchased by another fund created by the Elbasy – the “Nursultan Nazarbayev Fund”. Currently, the aircraft is in the fleet of Berkut Air, the state-owned airline of Kazakhstan, which is subordinate to the Presidential Administration.
Nazarbayev’s spokesman declined to comment on information about the property of the former president. In three funds, the requests were ignored, and in the fourth they said that the assets do not bring profit to the politician.
Removal from the post of head of the Security Council
Nursultan Nazarbayev ruled Kazakhstan until 2019, after which he transferred presidential powers to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and he himself took the post of head of the powerful Security Council for life. Amid mass protests and riots that broke out in Kazakhstan in early January, Tokayev dismissed the politician from his post.
Nazarbayev made a video message to the people only on January 18. He said that the January protests and riots were “an attack on Kazakhstan” with the aim of destroying “the foundations of the state.” Nazarbayev announced that Tokayev has full power in the country, is the chairman of the Security Council and will soon be elected chairman of the ruling Nur Otan party. An extraordinary congress of Nur Otan in an online format is scheduled for January 28.
The lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament, the Majilis, on January 19 approved legislative amendments that would abolish former President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s lifetime chairmanship of the Security Council and the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan (ANC).
In the first days after the mass unrest in Kazakhstan, a number of Nazarbayev’s relatives resigned from senior positions in state and commercial structures.
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