According to an international transparency watchdog Global Witness, Deutsche Bank used to and still does keep foreign currency accounts of Turkmen leaders where the latter store proceeds from gas sales. The fact that gas proceeds are stored there means:
1. That monies are not part of the budget and consequently that
2. proceed amounts are not transparent and finally that
3. only the leader of the country has access to it and can potentially use it for his own purposes.
According to GW's Tom Mayne, in 2009 the number might be as high as 12.5 billion USD. Since in 2007 5 billion gas proceeds made up half of the country's GDP, the current number should make up a similar share of the GDP.
Deutsche Bank seems to be very cosy with the fact. Germany corporate world overall has been very good with the late President Niyazov. There even were talks that Daimler sponsored the translation of his magnum opus Ruhnama into German as a gratitude to their VIP client. True, business is business and corporate world might not even give a damn about the nature of Turkmen political system and financial practices.
However, then why
1. Deutsche Bank refer to adherence to UN Global Compact, which, according to Mayne is pretty much an empty declaration?
2. Why does European democratic and anticorruption community not boycott Deutsche Bank or attempt to influence it somehow?
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