Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko may file in his resignation letter

Central Bank Governor Gregory Marchenko may file in his resignation letter, KazTag Agency reports, citing silkroadnews.org news portal. “Mr. Marchenko may file in his resignation letter although his tenure only expires in January 2015. There have been no direct hints [of his leaving the position] on the part of the official Astana. Some parliamentarians have criticized him for allegedly ignoring their invitations to come and report to the Parliament. Then there were some public protests against his suggestion to raise the retirement age for women. However, all these developments are unlikely to shake Mr. Marchenko’s positions”, an unidentified source told silkroadnews.org. “The point is that Marchenko is starting to lose his weight when decisions are taken at the President and Government’s levels. One may assert Mr. Marchenko is no longer someone to pay heed to. Finance-related officials do not publicly oppose him, but they confidently offer their own proposals when working on some decisions”, according to the source. For instance, the recent statement made by Head of State that the $10 billion allocated in 2008 out of the National Oil Fund [accumulating windfall oil revenues] to combat the repercussions of the global financial crisis have gone to nowhere “has nothing directly to do with the Head of the National Bank … however, indirectly it casts a shadow on him as he and the National Bank are to regulate the issues. We witnessed that the National Bank Head was convincing that the money of the National Oil Fund was badly needed to support troubled banks and the official Astana supported him back then. Now officials are asking him “Gregory, where is the money?”, the source said. According to the source, “the greatest blow for Mr. Marchenko as the mastermind of the current pension system was the clear-cut decision of President Nazarbayev to launch a single pension fund. The decision shows that the official Astana had been listening to international experts claiming the private pension funds are not effective in managing people’s savings rather than to Mr. Marchenko”. “Gregory Marchenko can stand up for himself (…) years ago when he was Vice PM he once openly voiced his thoughts for PM Danial Akhmetov, figuratively slamming the door behind himself and leaving Astana, the capital city, for Almaty. There is one more opportunity for him to publicly stick to his position in case the National Bank HQ is moved to Astana. As is known, Mr. Marchenko is against and has been openly saying that”, the source said. Gregory Marchenko first headed the National Bank in 1999. Five years later he was appointed Vice PM and then Advisor to the President. In 2009 he got back to head the National Bank. According to Euromoney, he was named the central bank governor of the year 2003.