Due to financial abuse Turkmenistan still remains without satellite

A possible reason for postponing the launch of the first Turkmen satellite became the financial abuse.
Such information was released by Gündogar, information website of the People’s Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan, which refers to the French edition Intelligenceonline. According to the edition’s information, the Turkmen authorities initiated investigative actions in order to find out whether there had been financial violations while acquiring space and ground equipment from the French company ThalesAleniaSpace.
Those violations are suspected to be committed by the senior management of the National Space Agency of Turkmenistan established in 2011.
As is well known, the construction of the first Turkmen spacecraft started in 2011 since signing contract between the French Corporation Thales and the Turkmen Government. Along with the French company, the telecommunications spacecraft was supposed to be placed into orbit also by the Chinese Corporation Great Wall. In terms of the contract with Thales, the Chinese party assumed commitments to put a 4,5-ton satellite into orbit just in November 2014. The launch was planned from the Chinese Xichang Space Center using the Changzheng 3B (Long March) rocket.
The concern about those plans was expressed by the US State Department. In late 2012 the high representatives of the State Department secretly visited the Thales’ headquarters aiming to force the French Corporation to denounce the agreement with the Chinese. As a result it was decided to allow the French company selling the satellite to Turkmenistan, provided that its launch would be carried out from the American Launch Center at the Cape Canaveral.
We shall recall that the spacecraft’s launch by using the American Falcon9 rocket was sheduled for the late March of current year, but it was postponed for a month for unknown reasons.