Finance Minister Unveiled Lukashenko’s Secret Reserve Fund :: Charter'97 :: News

Under such heading the independent newspaper “Nasha Svaboda” analyzes the yesterday’s speech of the country’s Finance Minister Nikolai Korbut in the “house of representatives”. The man confirmed that Alexander Lukashenko keeps on “Belarusbank’s” accounts the funds, earned through the illicit sale of arms. According to Korpbut, the means, which the state obtains from selling the so-called special materials of the Defense Ministry – “tanks and other military machinery” – are accumulated in the “Belarusbank” on the presidential “reserve fund” and “stabilization fund” for alleged ensuring of the reliability of population’s hard currency deposits. The Minister admitted that the money from these funds isn’t mentioned in any of the budget provisions. These words practically mean, says “Nasha Svaboda”, that Lukashenko misappropriated himself the money, which belongs to the Belarusian nation.

It doesn’t really matter how the funds, where the money is placed, are called – “stabilization”, “reserve” or, say, “for ensuring former president’s well-being after retirement”. More important is the fact that there’s no reporting on how the funds get into the accounts and how they are spent.

The nation has to take Lukashenko at his word, trusting that the money from the “presidential fund” isn’t spent on luxurious limousines for the president or opulent mansions abroad. Did the nation really entrust Lukashenko with a right to use their money this way? The sums, obtained through the sale of ammunition, remain unknown. However, in Lukashenko’s pre-election agitation he blurted out that they amount to $1 billion.