Despite the president’s ostentatious anti-corruption campaigns, a case of extremely lucrative contracts benefiting a company linked to his family has come to light in Tashkent. With his son-in-law Umarov at the center, the “eminence grise” of a system of power that ranges from big business to the world of sports.
Tashkent (AsiaNews) – An investigation by Radio Ozodlik, picked up by several other media outlets, has revealed the business of an almost unknown company linked to the family of the president of Uzbekistan, Šavkat Mirziyoyev, which has made secret deals with the State worth of more than 100 million dollars, among which stands out a multimillion-dollar contract to supply gas at a gold price to one of the country’s main cement companies.
The lucrative deal with fringe company Ultimo Group Limited suggests that the people involved, especially Mirziyoyev’s relatives, are receiving handsome dividends from their relationships with high-level politicians. Last year, the president himself had entrusted the relevant agencies with the task of eradicating corruption in the energy and fuel sector, repeatedly calling for maximum transparency and for the practice of bribery to end once and for all.
Uzbekistan, the most populous country in Central Asia with more than 37 million inhabitants, has extensive gas reserves, and since succeeding the historic first president, the authoritarian Islam Karimov, who died in 2016, Mirziyoyev does not miss the opportunity to reiterate that “already We do not have the right to continue as before, we must guarantee the development and well-being of the entire population. However, Ozodlik’s investigation shows how the highly opaque Ultimo Group contract was awarded in 2021, with the sale to then state-owned cement producer Qizilqumsement for a sum of more than $36 million. And it was the first gas sale of the semi-unknown company.
Documents revealed by the investigation show that the presidential family’s company received $66 million from the monopolist UzTransGaz, and that the company imported billions of cubic meters from neighboring Turkmenistan. The transaction was carried out with a network of partners that was not easy to rebuild, which extended from New York to Hong Kong, passing through Dubai. The central figure of the entire machination is Azizžon Kamilov, head of the judo federation of Uzbekistan and vice-president of the national Olympic committee, very close to Otabek Umarov, the president’s son-in-law and senior state official, very active in the sports sector.
Umarov is often referred to as the “eminence grise” of the power system at the top of Uzbekistan, which according to the latest reports from Transparency International remains “an authoritarian state with a high level of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power.” , although he recognizes “some progress” in Mirziyoyev’s latest reforms. Umarov’s public image in recent years has been his personal brand 7Saber, which produces sports uniforms for national teams, marketed by Ultimo Group.
The company investigated, founded in March 2021 with a capital of $9,500, is almost a ghost and has no official website or any form of public presentation, and one of the people named in the documents as the main owners is an elderly pensioner who has never He had dedicated himself to business. Only one of the shareholders, Tukhfat Anvarkhužaev, responded to journalists denying any relationship with Umarov, with whom he claims to have only “cordial relations, but not economic ones.”
Kamilov and Umarov, for their part, are two very popular personalities in Uzbekistan, who can be seen at competitions and many other events taking photos with the “front man” Anvarkhužaev. The investigation showed many other ambiguous relationships of the personalities involved, with Arab emirs and American fixers, often using the cover of the Olympic Committee and sporting events. Mirziyoyev’s “new Uzbekistan” ideal of transparency still seems quite far from becoming a reality.
2024-05-03 08:37:15
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