On 21 September, 2020 President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov issued a severe reprimand with the final warning to the Minister of the Interior Mamemtkhan Chakyev for “improper execution of job-related responsibilities and shortcomings at work”.
This was the first time the Interior Minister was admonished.
“Chronicles of Turkmenistan” have tried to find out what caused unexpected grave discontent of the head of state with the official’s performance.According to a source of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”, the cause of the reprimand was an overall high level of corruption in the Ministry of the Interior and increasing crime rate in Turkmenistan rather than one specific incident.
For almost twelve months of his tenure (Chakyev was appointed the Interior Minister in October 2019), the Minister helped his friends and relatives to secure high-ranking positions in organizations and agencies of Akhal velayat.
This led to several conflicts in higher-ranking authorities, which the President was informed of.
Moreover, the head of HR of the Interior Ministry prepared promotion orders only for those law enforcement officers who were ready to pay $10.000-$12.000 for the promotion.
Apart from corruption, the crime rate across the country is on the rise. The increase in crime rate was recorded under the previous minister but the scope of crime rate is currently rampant. The police departments have numerous robbery and theft cases to look into.
It should be emphasized that in 2017 and 2018 Mammetkhan Chakyev was the head of Turkmenistan’s State Economic Crime Enforcement Agency investigating cases of corruption among officials and high-ranking law-enforcement officers.
The former Interior Minister Isgender Mulikov was arrested for corruption in December 2019.
Charges of large-scale bribery were brought against the ex minister.During the search of personal belongings large amounts of money and a lot of jewelry items were identified in his house.