Whatever happened to Sir Richard Evans?

Eric Ellis

1 March 2008

Eric Ellis tracks down the former chairman of BAE Systems amid the wintry steppes of Kazakhstan, where he is trying to introduce Western notions of corporate governance

Evans sees the nepotism question coming, and jumps on it to neutralise a topic le tout Kazakhstan talks about but seems resigned to, at least while times are good and oil prices high. ‘Nonsense,’ he says, to suggestions that he is Nazarbayev’s right-hand. It is about as feisty as he gets in our two days together. ‘The distinct impression I have here is that there’s a wish not be seen repeating the Russian [oligarch] experience. Kazakhstan wants to create its own experiences. Nazarbayev is genuinely popular. My view is that [members of the ruling family] have to come through Samruk transparently in the way they are recruited, particularly at senior levels.

‘When you begin to understand the history of this place, there’s an explanation for nepotism which again will take time to change. It goes back into the Soviet era, into the early period of the collectivisations, the early 1930s, harsh times when people perished and the only way you could survive was to hunker down into families, the family chief looking after everybody. It was a matter of survival — there’s a certain instinct of that still around here, a responsibility to look after relatives which goes back into history.’

If it all sounds potentially tricky, it is. His contract at Samruk is open-ended; either side can terminate it if they think fit — but that doesn’t look likely any time soon. Still, I ask the 65-year-old warhorse what might end it for him.

‘If there was something to occur here that was absolutely contrary to what we are trying to achieve with transparency and proper governance. I’d tell people the truth why I’d left. I’d tell it like it is.’