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tajikistanweb.com

The unexpected IMF statement has stolen the limelight in an energy-obsessed Tajikistan. As a punishment for providing the Fund with "inaccurate" data on its credit policy and international reserves in order to secure IMF loans, Tajikistan’s National Bank will have to repay around $47.4m plus any interests accrued by February 5 next year. Earlier, the question was if Tajikistan would be ready to face such a challenge in its winter-stricken shape. But now the question is how, since it didn’t take too long to hear Dushanbe’s assurance that all credits would be returned to the International Monetary Fund in time.

Mohsin Khan, the IMF director of the Middle East and Central Asia department, has been quoted by London’s Financial Times as saying that the Fund had lent to Tajikistan "on the basis of audited central bank accounts that showed it had $450m in international reserves. In fact, the correct amount was $115m." According to Khan, the Tajik National Bank had not revealed to the Fund that "it had pledged reserves as collateral for loans made by international commercial banks to the country’s ailing cotton sector."

The National Bank has decided to return the credit stage-by-stage beginning from September 2008, ITAR-TASS reports. The bank’s statement does not explain though how this task could be accomplished. Deducting $47.4m in a short term could prove a next to impossible mission for any nation with $1600 GDP per capita (CIA figures), $1.2 billion of foreign debt and over $1 billion of winter crisis loss as Tajikistan is. Furthermore, the embarrassing "misreporting" instance has also triggered an investigation by the Asian Development Bank that is among Tajikistan’s top lenders.

Tajik political analyst Saymoddin Dustov assesses the situation as a preamble to a more serious impact on Tajikistan’s ailing economy. "The incident for sure will demonstrate our economic management skills to the outer world," says Dustov in an interview to Deutsche Welle. "And naturally it will reduce their political confidence in our country. As for our internal situation, the IMF’s requirement will further complicate it in the aftermath of the harshest energy crisis. Around $50 million is a very reasonable amount for us and almost equals our domestic investments that we had planned to put in use in the Ragun hydro power station construction this year."

Probably the government intends to return the money via domestic reserves, i.e. by applying tax pressure which will in turn inflict the feeble economy, suggests Saymoddin Dustov.

Tajik economist Hajimohammad Omarov is worried about the incident’s impact on Tajikistan’s international image as well. However, he believes that the International Monetary Fund has chosen to "punish" Tajikistan brutally straight after its devastating winter crisis, while it could have done it later.

The timing of the "punishment" has triggered some speculations that the IMF decision could be politically charged. The IMF Executive Board was very short and sharp in applying a penalty against Tajikistan: it took just one single session of its members not long after Tajikistan appealed for international aid to cope with the harsh winter consequences.

TajEconomy maintains that presumably a great power or a group of powers have decided to reprimand Tajikistan for "playing geopolitics". Growing economic pressure and Russia’s demonstrative indifference pushed Dushanbe closer to Tehran this winter, states the weblog, and naturally, it appealed to neither Washington nor Moscow.