Andijan city khokim and his associates misappropriate UZS 48 billion worth of budget funds

Kun.uz has received an audio recording of a motion to deprive Andijan city khokim Bakhrom Khaydarov of his parliamentary immunity, which was read out at a meeting of the Council (audio is available in the publication).

The proposal submitted by the PGO of the Republic of Uzbekistan raises the issue of prosecuting the Andijan city khokim Bakhrom Khaydarov for financial crimes committed during his tenure as head of the Finance Department of Andijan region from 2017 to October 2019.

It was reported that the PGO Office for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption is investigating the criminal case against officials of the Andijan city department of public education and others under Paragraph «а» of Article 167-3 and other articles of the Criminal Code.

Officials of the Andijan city department of public education from November 2018 to November 2020 conspired with a group of individuals to provide fraudulent inquiries and payment orders on monthly salaries and other payments of customers connected to the UzAsbo software package. 5 billion soums were looted through the misappropriation of budget funds.

In particular, Bakhrom Khaydarov (current khokim of Andijan), who served as head of the Finance Department of Andijan region from 2017 to October 8, 2019, used his official power and illegally over-allocated 14.3 billion soums to the city’s public education department to compensate for the 9 billion soums that were unjustifiably transferred from month to month by other officials.

Khaydarov, as the head of the regional finance department, did not save 6.8 billion soums from the single social payment and income tax.

37 people were charged under Paragraph «а» of Article 167-3 and other Articles of the Criminal Code, 32 were sentenced to imprisonment, 2 - to house arrest and 3 - to bail. Damage caused by the criminal case amounted to 48.5 billion soums, only 11.2 billion soums of this amount, or 23.1%, have been recovered so far.

According to the PGO, Khaydarov’s actions show the presence of elements of a crime under the relevant articles of the Criminal Code, the consequences of which have not been eliminated. 

Earlier, as a khokim, Bakhrom Khaydarov was accused of causing more than 1.7 billion soums in damage to state interests as a result of land allocation violations. The Andijan regional prosecutor’s office did not inform the public about the fate of the petition submitted to the regional council of people’s deputies on February 3, 2022 by the Andijan regional prosecutor’s office to deprive the khokim, who is also a deputy, of his immunity.

To date, the illegal actions of the Andijan city khokim in allocating land, insulting citizens and other issues have been strongly condemned by the public.