Akezhan Kazhegeldin

Kazhegeldin Akezhan Magzhanovchich was born on March 27, 1952 in the village of Georgievka, Semipalatinsk region, KazSSR.

Wife – Kazhegeldina (Bykova) Natalya Nikolaevna. Children: daughter Diana, son Magzhan.

Graduated from the Semipalatinsk Pedagogical Institute. N. K. Krupskaya. For two years he served in the Soviet Army, in the KGB Directorate for the Semipalatinsk region (1974-1978).

In 1989 he graduated from the Alma-Ata Institute of National Economy with a degree in economics.

From 1987 to 1989 he was a student of the training courses for the leadership of the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR. F. E. Dzerzhinsky.

He began his career as a concrete worker. He was a teacher and head teacher of a secondary school.

• 1979-1984 – Instructor, Deputy Head, Head of the Department of the Kalinin District Party Committee of the city of Semipalatinsk;
• 1985-1987 – Chairman of the Kirov District Executive Committee of the city of Semipalatinsk.
• 1987-1989 – Representative of the "Sozidatel" cooperative in Moscow.
• 1989-1992 – Director of the Semipalatinsk plant for the industrial processing of building and decorative facing stone.
• 1990 – General Director of JSC "Toman".
• 1990-1992 – General Director of FPG Semey.
• 1991-1993 – Deputy Chairman of the Semipalatinsk Regional Executive Committee, Head of the Regional Administration.
• From December 1993 to October 1994 – First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
• From October 1994 to October 1997 – Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
• From March to October 1998 – Freelance Adviser to the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Also held positions: Chairman of the Council of Entrepreneurs under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and President of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan.

In 1998 he was a candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

He was the chairman of the Republican People's Party of Kazakhstan, later a member of the political council of the United Democratic Party.

In December 1993, the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in order to update the leadership of the government, appointed Akezhan Kazhegeldin, President of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan, as First Deputy Prime Minister.

It was believed that he was well acquainted with the emerging business, he himself had entrepreneurial experience and would be able to cope with the reform of the economy of Kazakhstan, which was going through very difficult times.

At that time, few people knew that as such, Kazhegeldin did not make a real career as a businessman – in the enterprises he headed, he had rather representative functions. For all the time of his entrepreneurship, he earned only $ 45,000 from dividends from share ownership, paid to him in 1995.

Later, the Head of the Sozidatel cooperative, Alexander Lukin, recalled:

It is noteworthy, that when Kazhegeldin, having returned from Moscow to his native Semipalatinsk, became a shareholder of the Semey financial and industrial group, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, who later headed the Pavlodar region, became his partner.

He recalled that period thus:

At the time when Kazhegeldin became the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the tenge had just been put into circulation. The government was faced with the task of getting the economy back on its feet, and to do this, selling large enterprises into private ownership to investors. This would make it possible to provide the population with work, receive foreign exchange earnings, etc.

In early 1994, Kazhegeldin began a big sale of key mining companies. All privatization processes were carried out in secret from the public, and at that time Kazhegeldin transferred large enterprises to the brothers Mikhail and Lev Cherny for nothing.

The company of the Cherny brothers Trans World Group (TWG) created front companies registered in different countries, which were first managed and then privatized on very preferential terms: the Sokolovsko-Sarbai mining and processing plant, the Pavlodar aluminum plant and the Kazchrome corporation (Donskoy mining and processing plant, Ermakovskiy [Aksu] and Aktobe ferroalloy plants). It seemed to ignorant people that investors from different countries came to Kazakhstan, in fact, all this was accumulated in the interests of one business.

TWG has created a system of special measures to increase the financial dependence of managed enterprises on its banking, trading and supply structures. In practice, the company's own working capital was withdrawn and returned in the form of loans. As a result of the repayment of issued loans and interest on them, the companies actually found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy (with an increase in production) and by mid-November 1997 were left with practically no stocks of raw materials, materials, finished product residues and money.

In October 1994, Akezhan Kazhegeldin became the Head of the Kazakh government. He drew up documents in which the cost of these enterprises was underestimated tenfold compared to the real one. Contracts were drawn up in which the investor did not have clear and precise obligations. All tenders were held in a hurry, and the winners were invariably firms associated with Mikhail Cherny.

Literally within a few months, Mikhail Cherny, only in Kazakhstan, began to own a large industrial complex for the extraction and smelting of non-ferrous metals. Akezhan Kazhegeldin immediately received a substantial reward and purchased real estate in Belgium for more than $6 million.

In 1996, Kazhegeldin illegally provided the Cherny brothers with tax benefits in the amount of 5 billion tenge. He helped the Chernys maintain their image as successful investors. Kazhegeldin wrote such bravura reports for President Nursultan Nazarbayev that he only learned of the true state of affairs after the collapse of TWG's business.

But Kazhegeldin did not stop at "helping" the Cherny brothers – the privatization campaign was in full swing. In June 1996, he privatized the Ekibastuz GRES-1, the largest thermal power plant in the republic. At an estimated cost of 23.7 billion tenge, the power plant was sold during a closed tender to the American company AES using the Dutch method at a price of 100 million tenge.

Since 1997, the AES group of companies in Kazakhstan has included LLP NPP Shulbinskaya HPP, LLP NPP Ust-Kamenogorsk HPP, AES JSC Ust-Kamenogorsk CHPP, AES LLP Sogrinskaya CHPP, LLP Shygysenergotrade , Vostochno-Kazakhstan Distribution Energy Company, JSC Ust-Kamenogorsk Thermal Networks, trading company Nurenergoservice. Privatization was carried out according to an already worked out scheme.

However, for a long time such an impudent behavior of the main corrupt official of the country could not go unnoticed. In July 1997, KNB Chairman Alnur Musaev made his historic report to the Parliament of Kazakhstan, where he spoke about the illegal acquisition of assets by TWG, and also announced the findings of the Belgian police investigation into real estate owned by Kazhegeldin's wife.

In August 1997, the tax police arrested British businessman Gavin Richard de Salis, president of JSC Vitol Munai, in Almaty. Kazhegeldin persuaded the President to release the businessman. But reports began to appear in the press about a number of acts of the Prime Minister, including his connection with Vitol Munai and the privatization of JSC Shymkentnefteorgsintez , an oil refinery in Shymkent, for $60 million.

At the end of September 1997, Kazhegeldin took a vacation, left for Switzerland, from where he sent a letter of resignation from the post of Prime Minister. And he was the first of the high-flying Kazakh criminals who decided to cover up his criminal cases with "political" motives.

With the support of the Cherny brothers, Akezhan Kazhegeldin created the Republican People's Party of Kazakhstan (RPPK), whose deputy chairman and chairman of the executive committee was Gaziz Aldamzharov.

In 1999, he made an attempt to run for president in early elections, but Akezhan Kazhegeldin's candidacy was not registered. The former prime minister was put on the international wanted list.

After a series of trials and arrest in Italy, Kazhegeldin began to "nurture" the opposition. In December 2001, he signed a joint statement on the formation of the United Democratic Party (UDP) together with the new chairman of the RPPK executive committee, Amirzhan Kosanov, co-chairman of the Azamat party, Petr Svoik, and member of the executive committee of the People's Congress of Kazakhstan (NKK), Gulzhan Yergalieva.

At the same time, a trial in absentia of former Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin began in Kazakhstan. The materials of the investigation consisted of 35 volumes, 75 people were witnesses, former and current civil servants of various ranks, as well as foreign citizens.

Kazhegeldin was accused of corruption crimes: extortion, abuse of office, embezzlement. Other charges included tax evasion and illegal possession of firearms.

During the court hearings, it became known that in early 1995, Kazhegeldin single-handedly, without holding a government meeting, issued and signed Decree No. 108 "On the exemption of the Daulet professional sports club from paying import, customs duties and excises on imported goods."

The document was contrary to the legislation in force at that time. As a result, the management of Daulet received a loan of $1 million on preferential terms, bought a large batch of imported cigarettes, beer and vodka, several foreign cars and went into business. The court was unable to establish what percentage of the profits were directed to the development of sports. According to the prosecution, the republican budget missed 118 million tenge.

The prosecution demanded that Kazhegeldin be sentenced to twelve years in a penal colony with confiscation of property and asked the court to file a civil lawsuit in the amount of 6.6 billion tenge.

The court found Akezhan Kazhegeldin guilty of committing crimes under paragraphs "a", "c", "d" part 4 of Art. 311; Part 1 Art. 308; Part 2 Art. 251 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan and appointed 10 years in prison in a penal colony with confiscation of property: an apartment in Almaty, a castle in the Rhode-Saint-Genese area and a land plot in Le Manoir (Kingdom of Belgium), as well as Mercedes-Benz 600S cars and Toyota Landcruiser.

For a long time, Akezhan Kazhegeldin behaved quite quietly, but suddenly, in April 2018, the so-called "Jana Kazakhstan" forum was held in the capital of Belgium, which brought together "civil activists". The "guests" were received by former Prime Minister Kazhegeldin. It was said that Bergey Ryskaliyev supported the forum financially, but the organizers did not officially confirm this information.

Among the forum participants were: Serik Medetbekov, Head of the Kazakh Opposition Bureau Abroad, civil activists Nurul Rakhimbek and Serikzhan Mambetalin, politician Amirzhan Kosanov, political scientists Aidos Sarym and Rasul Zhumaly, public figures Dos Kushim and Bashir Zhanaltay, Head of the Liberty Public Foundation Galym Ageleuov, journalists Yermurat Bapi and Miras Nurmukhanbetov, leader of the Bolashak youth movement Dauren Babamurat.

Three questions were put on the agenda:
1. Socio-political situation in the country: tasks and goals of civil society.
2. Transition period: The draft of the new Constitution and what will the future government be?
3. Forum "Jana Kazakhstan": in what form it will be continued.

Within the framework of the Forum, meetings were also held with deputies of the European Parliament, at which they discussed the political situation in the country, in particular, civil rights, political prisoners, freedom of speech, electoral legislation, as well as the foreign policy of Kazakhstan.

A month later, the participants of the Jana Kazakhstan forum announced the start of legal registration. It was reported that the organization will include public politicians, experts and journalists, and its goals will be political education of the population, analysis of public policy and building public discussion on a wide range of issues.

Then Amirzhan Kosanov stated that the Forum wants to ensure that Kazakhstan is among the civilized countries where peaceful expression of protest is possible on various issues: communal, environmental or political:

A year later, on June 20, 2019, the unregistered organization Jana Kazakhstan Forum announced that it was ceasing its activities. The group said in a statement that they do not plan to register as a party, but intend to continue to work in separate areas.

Explaining the curtailment of its activities, the organization said that they "continue to receive fictitious accusations" of involvement with the administration of the President of Kazakhstan, but for them "it seems difficult to refute these accusations", so they "decided to stop the forum."

Miras Nurmukhanbetov, a member of the movement, explained that an attempt to register as a party was impossible due to the situation with member Amirzhan Kosanov, who positioned himself as an opposition presidential candidate, but before the official results of the early elections were announced, he admitted defeat and congratulated the candidate from the ruling party on his victory.