The Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption has fulfilled president’s order on investigating use of budgetary funds allocated for construction of facilities in Dushanbe in time, the deputy chief of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, Abdukarim Zarifzoda, told reporters in Dushanbe on July 28.
According to him, the anticorruption agency has inspected 69 facilities for embezzlement of state funds. “Findings by the anticorruption agency show that overstated expenses have cost the country at 7.8 million somoni,” said Zarifzoda. “Inspections are under way.”
Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev had served as mayor of Dushanbe for almost two decades before resigning on January 12. President Emomali Rahmon's eldest son, Rustam Emomali, replaced him as mayor of Dushanbe.
Ubaidulloyev announced on February 7 that he has given up his seat in the Dushanbe’s legislature (Majlis).
Ubaidulloyev made the announcement less than two weeks after the deputy chief of the anticorruption agency, Iliyos Idriszoda, said on January 27 that a preliminary investigation had been launched into possible embezzlement of state funds by staff members during Ubaidulloev's long tenure as mayor of the capital.
Idriszoda told reporters that the investigation was launched after the agency received complaints from several Dushanbe residents who suspected that state funds allocated for the construction of apartment blocks were misused.
He said that the new mayor, Rustam Emomali, had also asked the agency to look into the situation.
“Even though the mayor’s office is inspected every two years, and the next inspection was due in 2018, the new mayor of Dushanbe submitted a request to the anticorruption agency to check on the mayor’s activities,” the deputy chief of the anticorruption agency, Abdukrim Zarifzoda, told reporters on January 27.
Meanwhile, President Emomali Rahmon told a February 15 meeting of Dushanbe officials and businessmen that some 100 million U.S. dollars had been misspent in the construction of the Dushanbe Plaza complex and Istiqlol medical center. The president has tasked his son Rustam Emomali with leading the investigation into what happened to the money.
Concerning funds earmarked for the completion of state-run urban facilities, President Rahmon said that the Dushanbe mayor’s office investigations had revealed that out of a total of 677 million somoni (equivalent to 85 million U.S. dollars) spent on completing 18 separate facilities, around 55 million somoni had been “used improperly.” An investigation into what happened to this cash should be completed by the anticorruption agency by July, he said.
Another area of investigation has concerned the government’s “Affordable Housing” project. This initiative, supported by the Dushanbe mayor’s office, was launched in 2013 and was supposed to lead to the hard-up families moving into new homes by September 2015. But building work was serially delayed, causing alarm among hopeful homebuyers that had put down deposits.
