"Lukashenka Can Spend $4000 A Day On Food"

• 11.02.2022, 9:17

Sometimes the size of his fund is comparable to the budget of Belarus.

In a conversation with Belsat reporter Aryna Malinouskaya, former head of Hi-Tech Park and participant of the 2020 election campaign, Valeryj Tsepkala shares his own thoughts about those who work for the Belarusian government.

- How does Lukashenka treat the officials around him?

- For him, a person, whether he is in the security services or a common man, is just some fertilizer to ensure his personal power. And the fact that he has replaced 10 interior ministers in 27 years, 10 prime ministers during his rule, a great number of heads of the administration, he was constantly shuffling the Security Council, - all this shows that he has no allegiance to people. And even those who are close to him today, actually, it is only up to some time. The time will come, he will give them a kick in the ass too, as he gave to all those who preceded them.

The idea is that there should be only one man in the sky, and that man is Lukashenka. No one else can be around. This model of management, on the one hand, seems quite stable. On the other hand, if it is concentrated on one man, if anything happens to him the whole system will collapse at once. And this characterizes the fact that Belarus under Lukashenka has not formed as a State. After all, the institutions have to work to maintain a functioning state: parliamentary institutions, judicial institutions, economy, development of middle class, and the change of power must take place in a clear and transparent way. And everything under him is totally non-transparent. As soon as any difficulty appears he immediately runs to Russia for protection.

- How much do Belarusian top-ranking officials earn?

- Officials, I think, do not earn much. It's another matter with whom we compare. If now the average salary in Estonia is 1,500 euros, while in Belarus we make four times less, it seems that officials receive high salaries. I think that officials get 2-3 thousand Belarusian roubles. But they probably receive, among other things, some money in envelopes. But I can't say it's a lot of money.

Perhaps there is an additional cash box for proxies, from which they receive money. This fund is called "presidential reserve fund". State-owned enterprises are forced to give away all the super-profits they make from oil trading, timber trading, potash fertilizers and so on. All this goes into the Fund, and Lukashenka not only eats it up, of course, but shares it as well.

How much can he spend? I've seen a figure of $4000 a day - that's expenses for food, etc. Plus he spends on aircraft maintenance, car fleets, his personal security service, it is very large, there are about 3000 people there as far as I know. These are all extrabudgetary expenditures, we do not see them.

But I know that in some years his so-called 'reserve fund' was as big as the entire Belarusian budget.

- What is keeping the officials? It turns out that it is not only money?

- There is a fear to lose one's job. You should understand that the system created in Belarus is a system of absolutely poor people and impossibility to find a job if you undertake any civic act. In that case you will lose your job and won't be able to find it. Lukashenka purposely makes people poor, purposely makes it so that people live from one salary to another, and thus hangs them as if on a hook, so that they dare not speak out as they see fit, so that they have no point of view and are afraid that they might be fired.