The bribery case of Askar Nouralizoda, the deputy head of the Main Directorate for Investment and Development of Regions at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, is really disgraceful, the Deputy Minister of economic Development and Trade, Zavqi Zavqizoda, told reporters in Dushanbe on January 23.
According to him, the ministry is taking measures to prevent such cases in the future.
“We have adopted an appropriate plan of actions and carried out explanatory works with employees. Video cameras have been installed in offices and passages to monitor employees in order to prevent such cases in the future,” Zavqizoda said.
“Besides, all national investment programs are now accepted not by the ministry but by a special government commission,” the deputy minister added.
Recall, a court in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district sentenced Askar Nouralizoda, the deputy head of the Main Directorate for Investment and Development of Regions at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, to eleven years in prison on January 10.
The sentence followed conviction of Nouralizoda on charges of extorting bribe and large-scale bribery (Article 319 (4) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code).
According to information posted on the anticorruption agency’s official website, Askar Nouralizoda requested a US$1 million bribe and a three-room apartment for his wife Savrinisso Kholiqova from a resident of the Jaloliddini-Balkhi district (Khatlon province) in exchange for including the development of poultry production in the district in the 2016-2020 state investment program.
That resident of the Jaloliddini-Balkhi district reportedly promised to give US1 million to Nouralizoda if he help him receive a US10 million grant for the poultry production development program
Nouralizoda was reportedly caught red-handed on September 28 last year while taking a US$490,000 bribe.
Besides, investigators found 10,000 U.S. dollars in his home.
