But the trouble is likely to get worse. Disagreements, quarrels and policy flip-flops in the oil sector may indicate that the government is not quite capable of reaching a consensus on what is to be done about the expected shortfalls in funds this year. The oil price slump has hurt Kazakhstan even though it is not a major exporter because it makes Central Asian oil, which is relatively expensive to extract and transport, uncompetitive. In turn, the enterprises that extract this uncompetitive oil are finding it harder and harder to earn the funds needed to keep the business running and pay their workers. Oil company employees, meanwhile, are getting more and more restless as managers are forced to delay salary payments.
All sides seem to agree that the situation is bad.
But finding a solution for the problem has been difficult. Different parties within the government seem to have fallen into quarrels over how to repair the troubled machinery of the state. For example, the Kazakh government tried to plug holes in the budget last month by forcing oil producers to pay a road tax on gasoline and diesel. But oil industry managers were unanimously of the opinion that the levies did more harm than good. Nurlan Kapparov, head of the state company Kazakhoil, begged Astana to revoke them.