ASHGABAT: Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has sacked his oil and gas minister for incompetence, the fifth time in five years that he has dismissed the number one energy official, state media said Saturday.
Oil and Gas Minister Bayramgeldi Nedirov was fired "for serious shortcomings in his work", according to a decree published in government newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan.
Berdymukhamedov has sacked five oil and gas ministers, all of them for incompetence, since becoming president following the death of his eccentric predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov in late 2006.
There is no explanation as to why the incumbent minister has been fired so frequently, at a time when China and the West are both courting Turkmenistan over its immense gas reserves and it is starting to work with foreign firms.
Its gas reserves, according to British auditors Gaffney, Cline and Associates, are the second largest in the world.
The new oil and gas minister is to be Kakageldy Abdyllayev, until now the deputy head of state gas company Turkmengas.
In what appeared to be a wide-ranging shake-up of the energy leadership, Berdymukhamedov also appointed Yagshigeldi Kakayev deputy prime minister with special responsibility for work in the energy sector with foreign firms.
Background information on the motivations for such changes rarely seeps out of Turkmenistan, which even after cautious reforms by Berdymukhamedov remains along with North Korea one of the world's most secretive states.
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