By Casey Michel
March 31, 2015
It’s no secret that Central Asia is one of the most corrupt regions on the planet. Among the 175 nations surveyed in Transparency International’s most recent Corruptions Perceptions Index, only Kazakhstan landed within the top 130, coming in at 126th place. Awash in nepotism, strong-arm tactics, and heavy-handed statism, Kyrgyzstan (136), Tajikistan (152), Uzbekistan (166), and Turkmenistan (169) have helped turn Central Asia into one of the most corruption-prone regions this side of the Horn of Africa.
Nonetheless, wholesale looks into the depths of regional corruption are relatively few and far between. (There’s little coincidence that such corruption dovetails with wide-scale media repression.) As such, last week presented a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the region’s first families. A pair of reports helped illustrate the preferred methods of the first families, both current and former, for swindling billions from the broader populations.
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