Someone to Watch Over You

Turkmen president Saparmurat Niazov’s decision to establish a special department to monitor his senior officials gives the secret police an additional tool for interfering in government affairs.



At a government meeting last week, Niazov expressed dissatisfaction with several senior officials whom he accused of disrupting the cotton harvest. The ministers of agriculture and water resources drew strong criticism, and the head of Daihanbank, a major financial institution that lends to the agricultural sector, lost his job.



The meeting resulted in the announcement of a special office to boost the “executive discipline of the leadership”.



Turkmenistan-watchers interviewed by NBCentralAsia say the move will do no more than legitimise the already strong – but covert – surveillance that the secret service carries out on officials of all levels. Now the Ministry of National Security, MNB, has acquired even greater powers to monitor the day-to-day work of government officials.



The MNB remains the most influential force close to the president, and provides him with detailed reports which he often uses as a basis on which to sack or imprison officials who have gone wrong. These dismissals take place in public, frequently in the middle of cabinet meetings.



Niazov introduced another new practice less than a month ago: appointing a deputy minister for sport and tourism, he seconded an MNB agent to keep an eye on his work.



Some commentators see the new surveillance unit as a product of the bureaucratic machine the president has created, founded on fear of the MNB.



“Niazov does not trust the people around him, and has created this new department to keep his ministers in a state of suspense,” said Mars Sariev, an analyst who spent a long time in Turkmenistan.



The new performance assessment unit seems to be up and running already. Indirect proof of this is provided by the daily reports coming in from all of Turkmenistan’s regions which indicate that the pace of the cotton harvest is slowing. That suggests that regional governors have begun reporting figures that are closer to the truth than was formerly the case.



“Officials will no longer be able to say they have fulfilled the state’s cotton plan – he [Niazov] will sack all of them and put new people in their place,” said an NBCentralAsia analyst.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)