Dushanbe, October 27, 2017, Asia-Plus – The case of Umed-88, one of Tajikistan’s largest gas retailers, is becoming more and more interesting. Top managers of Umed-88 are charged with embezzlement of illegally received or illegally granted loan. Top managers of the company have been detained and Umed-88 signs have been taken down across the country. But nothing is said about what punishment will be imposed on those who signed that loan agreement, those who gave people’s money into private hands.
What is Umed-88 charged with?
Things started looking grim for the company after President Emomali Rahmon harshly criticized Umed-88 owner Rajabali Odinayev during a meeting with local businesspeople in Dushanbe on October 14.
The president, in particular, noted that Umed-88 had some years ago received a 170 million somoni loan at 18 percent interest with facilitation from the Ministry of Finance, but that the company had failed to pay the money back.
“Sixty million somoni of this money have gone to paying off debts to Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB), and 25 million has gone to Amonatbonk. The rest he [Odinayev] just spent for his own needs. He should answer before the law. Government money is the money of the people,” Emomali Rahmon said.
After president’s criticism directed at the founder of gas retailer Umed-88, workers started to take down Umed-88 signs across the country. The company’s head office in Dushanbe has been closed.
Ten days later, the anticorruption agency said that Rajabali Odinayev and Umed-88 director Idibek Ibrohimov top managers of Umed-88 had been arrested. Odinayev and Ibrohimov were detained on October 14 right after the president harshly criticized the company. They are reportedly suspected of abusing office, illegally receiving a loan and embezzling state funds.
Radio Liberty's Tajik Service reports that today morning it became known that four other employees of the company, including chief accountant, were detained on October 25. The chief accountant is charged with embezzlement of funds while three others, who are heads of refueling stations (their names are not disclosed), reportedly acted as guarantors for getting loans from Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank) and TSB.
According to information posted on the website of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) NBO Roghun, Ministry of Finance and Umed-88 LLC on May 15, 2015 signed a trilateral loan agreement, under which OJSC NBO Roghun acted as creditor and the Ministry of Finance and Umed-88 LLC acted as borrowers (Most likely, the Ministry of Finance acted as guarantor – Asia-Plus).
The document provided for granting a 171 million somoni loan to Umed-88 LLC for enhancement of the country’s agrarian-and-industrial complex by means of providing farming units with diesel fuel. The borrowers should have repaid the loan not later than December 31, 2015.
According to the anticorruption agency, Umed-88 top managers received a large state loan illegally. Umed-88 director Idibek Ibrohimov, the gas retailer owner Rajabali Odinayev and other top managers of the company are charged with untargeted use of the loan. In May-June 2015, they reportedly used 74 million somoni of the loan to repay the company’s debts to Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank) and Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB).
You are looking in the wrong place
The most surprised in this story is the fact that the anticorruption agency has said nothing about managers of the Ministry of Finance and OJSC NBO Roghun.
The anticorruption agency says the preliminary investigation is still under way. But it seems that they have started investigation only from one side and not the most important side.
Experts say that while providing such a large amount, managers of the Ministry of Finance and OJSC NBO Roghun should have realized that under conditions of an acute shortage of finances in the country the company will not be able to repay the loan in such a short term (seven months).
Moreover, the private company could not make government bodies provide such a large amount to it. It means that the state loan was not only illegally received but it was also illegally granted?
Tajikistan founded OJSC NBO Roghun with an authorized capital of 116 million somoni for completing the construction of the Roghun station in April 2008 after it formally revoked a contract with Russia’s RusAl aluminum company for the construction of the Roghun HPP in August 2007. The Tajik government accused the Russian company of failing to fulfill the contract signed in 2004. Tajik authorities and RusAl became bogged down in the hydroelectric plant's dam model and height, crucial factors in its capacity.
To raise funds to complete construction of the Roghun HPP the government started to sell shares in Roghun to people on January 6, 2010. Tajikistan has reportedly issued 6 billion somoni worth of Roghun shares.
To-date, the sale of Roghun shares has reportedly earned the government more than 830 million somoni.
22,000 people are reportedly holders of the Certificates of Shares (the face value of one Certificate of Shares is 5,000 somoni) and nearly 2 million people are holders of shares of the face values of 100, 500 and 1,000 somoni.
