The State Committee on Investments and State-owned Property Management (GosKomInvest) says the government has changed its mind about selling the Dushanbe-based clothing factor “Guliston.”
An official source at GosKomInvest says only one of the factory’s warehouses will be put on action that will take place on May 23.
“The starting price is 784,436 somoni (equivalent to 85,000 U.S. dollars),” said the source. “All persons interested can participate in the upcoming auction.”
Recall, the clothing factory Guliston was privatized by Ukrainian billionaire Dmitry V. Firtash in 2002, when the jailed Tajik tycoon Zayd Saidov was Minister of Industry of Tajikistan and representatives of the anticorruption agency note that Zayd Saidov allegedly promoted illegal privatization of the enterprise using his official status.
Firtash reportedly assumed the 95% ownership interest and Zayd Saidov’s son, Khairullo Saidov, owned 5 percent of shares in this enterprise
Firtash was arrested in Vienna on March 12, 2014, and released on a 125 million Euro bail two days later.
Following Firtash’s arrest, Tajikistan’s anticorruption agency charged him on March 15, 2014 with the illegal privatization of the clothing factory “Guliston”.
The anticorruption agency argued that Zayd Saidov had been involved in the fraudulent privatization of the clothing factory.
On April 2, 2014, Dushanbe’s Economic Court invalidated privatization of Closed Joint-Stock Company (CJSC) “Guliston” on the basis of a suit filed by the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption. The court ruled that the enterprise must be handed over to the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies.
