KHUJAND, January 21, 2011, Asia-Plus — Director of the branch of Intourist-Tajikistan (Tajik travel agency) in Sughd province, Nabi Gulmatov, who is now under custody, has reimbursed part of money collected from unaccomplished Hajjis from northern Tajikistan.
The office of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption in Sughd yesterday gave news conference on the results of the past year’s work.
The Sughd anticorruption authorities noted that Gulmatov has reimbursed only US$37,000 to this day.
As it had been reported earlier, 260 Muslims from northern Tajikistan have failed to perform hajj this year due to Gulmatov’s fraud actions.
Gulmatov decided to send a group of pilgrims from Sughd to Mecca through three Kazakh private companies, though he knew that only the Committee on Religious Affairs is authorized to send Tajik Hajj pilgrims to Mecca. He reportedly purchased 249 quotas from those Kazakh companies for US$481,875 and collected US$896,000 and 5,940 somoni from 260 local residents, promising to send them to Mecca. Gulmatov did not record these funds at the cash office of Intourist-Tajikistan’s branch in Sughd. He sent US$478,000 to those three private companies in Kazakhstan and US$100,000 to the UAE air company and illegally sent US$5,000 to Saudi Arabia through his friends. He did not send 260 local residents to Mecca and embezzled the remaining US$267,750 and 5,940 somoni.
Criminal proceedings have been instituted against Nabi Gulmatov under the provisions of articles 247 (fraud) and 259 (illegal entrepreneurship) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code and an investigation is under way, the source added.
