Translation of Sorge’s post.

The authorities revealed in April that nearly $1 billion “disappeared” from one of the major banks in Kazakhstan, Alliance Bank. The loss resulted in delay of the bank’s external debt restructuring process. Though there were no charges brought against the bank’s top management, the rumors are that Chairman of the Board Margulan Seysembayev fled the country.

However, last week Mr. Seysembayev sent a letter to Interfax news agency, in which he explained that he left the country for summer vacation and specified that he plans to come back on August 30. At the same time, he made controversial statements on his alleged non-involvement in the suddenly revealed debt.

Seysembayev accused Zhomart Yertayev, ambitious top manager of Alliance Bank in 2007, as a person liable for the debt. According to Seysembayev, Yertayev “enjoyed absolute trust of the management” and took the $1.1 billion loan for the bank in 2007, which came to the notice of Seysembayev only a year later. Blogger thousand-pa doubts that the banker was not aware of the deal [ru]:

«It sounds ridiculous: “All negotiations were held without my participation”. That is to say – “I took a one billion dollar credit, but I didn’t go into details”.

Zhomart Yertayev, the former head of Alliance, also reacted to Seysembayev’s letter by “meeting the challenge” and commented each paragraph of the letter on the same news agency. Yertayev wrote that Seysembayev was fully aware of the capital-related deals, while the controlling bodies, which did not understand the situation properly, qualified the fact that $1.1 billion were written off as “stealing”. Yertayev thinks that he could have become a “pawn’ in the game for Alliance Bank’s acquisition.

The observers believe that all that “mess” with Yeratyev’s dismission from his last position at the Eurasian Bank and Seysembayev’s letter conceals some secret game. So far it looks like the processes of the property redistribution and redeployment of oligarchic forces start spinning up and soon – after August 30 – it will become clear, who will be appointed a scapegoat this time.