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Microcap & Penny Stocks : IKAR MINERAL CORP...(IKAR)..looks to be ready & surprising -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rick D. who wrote (138)	3/12/1998 9:38:00 AM
From: Mike Boiko	Respond to of 188

Rick, let's hope that IKAR continues to have good releations with the LOCAL government. Remember we are are talking LOCAL government now not the Kremlin based government. The local government can be like dealing with getting a speeding ticket driving through a small southern town - if you know what I mean. Here's an example yesterday of a western businessman who didn't have such good releations with the local government not that far from the region where IKAR will be mining. -mike- ------------------------------------------------- British oilman vows fight after Kazakh fine 01:10 p.m Mar 11, 1998 Eastern By Alastair Macdonald ALMATY, March 11 (Reuters) - A British oil company manager vowed to fight for his freedom on Wednesday after what he called a ''show trial'' in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan which has left him stranded and facing ''ruin and bankruptcy.'' Gavin De Salis, who spent eight days in a Kazakh jail last August, was last week personally fined $5.6 million for tax evasion by the Kazakh subsidiary of Swiss-based oil trading firm Vitol. De Salis was president of the unit, Vitol-Munai. The claims against De Salis and the Vitol-owned company are being contested. Both deny wrongdoing, say they have not broken the law and have offered to pay the taxes as a conciliatory gesture though they insist they don't owe them. The case has caused disquiet among Western business people, whose investment and expertise Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has tried to attract. A number of other foreign firms have also argued with the authorities. De Salis, 41, has been unable to leave Kazakhstan since his arrest in August. His passport was withheld. He pledged to appeal the heavy fine, saying it was an abuse of basic human rights and could damage Kazakh efforts to attract foreign investment to develop its largely untapped mineral wealth. ''I'm an oil professional, I'm a westerner. I came to Kazakhstan to take, certainly, some opportunities from privatisation, to participate in the economy and to work,'' De Salis told a news conference in the commercial capital, Almaty. ''And what do I find? I was shown in public as a criminal, I was put through a show trial and I am faced with ruin and bankruptcy,'' said De Salis, a refinery expert who began working in the former Soviet Union in 1992 and in Kazakhstan in 1994. ''They are shooting themselves in the foot,'' he added. A year ago the Kazakh tax police claimed some $4 million in unpaid withholding taxes from Vitol plus a further $4 million in fines. The company contested the claim, arguing that the taxes should have been paid by its Kazakh customers. After what De Salis describes as a campaign of vilification in local media, however, Vitol offered to pay the $4 million in taxes -- $2.7 million of which had already been seized from its accounts. ''The tax police...did not even reply,'' De Salis said. As a result, Vitol, one of the world's biggest oil traders, wound up its activity in Kazakhstan. De Salis remains president of the recently privatised Chimkent oil refinery in southern Kazakhstan after finding other backers once Vitol dropped out. The Briton, whose wife and two young children are in London, is appealing the local court sentence, which also bars him from pursuing business activities in Kazakhstan for four years. ''I enjoy the fight and I'm going to win it,'' he said. Aside from fighting the grounds for the original tax claim and fine against Vitol, which are also still outstanding, De Salis will contest the principle of levying a personal fine on a company official, whose size, he argued, was so disproportionate and unaffordable as to be a breach of basic human rights. It also took $1.6 million to secure his release on bail. Officials at the tax police were not available for comment. A British embassy official in Almaty said: ''We have raised certain issues with the Kazakh authorities.'' Large-scale foreign investment has been allowed in privatised industries but authorities have warned foreigners to comply with Kazakh rules. Some investors have complained of interference from corrupt officials and a fluid legal and taxation framework. ''The De Salis case shouldn't be seen in isolation,'' one western diplomat in Almaty said. ''It seems odd that a country wanting to attract foreign investors should act in this way.'' REUTERS Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication and redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.