Despite the president’s vaunted anti-corruption campaigns, a story of extremely advantageous contracts for the benefit of a company linked to his family has come to light in Tashkent. With his son-in-law Umarov at the centre, the “gray eminence” of a system of power that ranges from big businesses to the world of sport.
Tashkent (AsiaNews) – An investigation by Radio Libertyreported by several other media, revealed the affairs of an almost unknown company linked to the family of the president of Uzbekistan, Šavkat Mirziyoyev, who made secret deals with the state for over 100 million dollars, especially a multimillion-dollar contract for the delivery of gas to one of the main cement companies in the country at a higher price.
The deal is extremely advantageous for the marginal Ultimo Group Limited suggests that the people involved, especially Mirziyoyev’s relatives, receive very substantial dividends thanks to their relationships with high-level politicians. Last year, the president himself had entrusted the bodies concerned with the task of eradicating corruption in the energy and fuel sector, repeatedly asking for maximum transparency and to stop the practice of bribery once and for all.
Uzbekistan, the most populous country in Central Asia with over 37 million inhabitants, has large gas reserves, and since he succeeded the first historic president, the authoritarian Islam Karimov who died in 2016, Mirziyoyev never misses an opportunity to reiterate that “we no longer have the right to carry on as before, we must guarantee the development and well-being of the entire population”. Yet the investigation of Freedom demonstrates how the very little transparent contract of theLast Group was granted in 2021, with the sale to the main cement producer Kyzylkumcement, then owned by the state, for a sum of over 36 million dollars. And it was the first gas sale of the little-known company.
The documents revealed by the investigation show how 66 million dollars were transferred to the presidential family company by 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 is not easy to reconstruct, which extends from New York to Hong Kong, passing through Dubai. The central figure in the whole scheme is Azizžon Kamilov, head of the judo federation in Uzbekistan and vice-president of the national Olympic committee, very close to Otabek Umarov, the president’s son-in-law and high-ranking state official, very active in the sports sector.
Umarov is often referred to as the “gray eminence” of the power system at the top of Uzbekistan, which according to the latest reports Transparency International it remains “an authoritarian state with a high level of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power”, while recognizing “some progress” in Mirziyoyev’s latest reforms. Umarov’s public image in these years was his brand personal 7Saberwhich produces sports uniforms for national teams, marketed by Last Group.
The company under investigation, founded in March 2021 with a capital of 9,500 dollars, is almost a ghost and does not have an official website, nor any form of public presentation, and one of the people indicated by the documents among the main owners is a elderly pensioner who had never been involved in business. Only one of the shareholders, Tukhfat Anvarkhužaev, responded to journalists by denying any relationship with Umarov, with whom he claims there are only “cordial relations, but not economic relations”.
Kamilov and Umarov are two very popular characters in Uzbekistan, who show themselves at competitions and in many other events by being photographed together with the “figurehead” Anvarkhužaev. The investigation revealed many other shady relationships of the characters involved, with Arab emirs and American fixers, often using the cover of the Olympic Committee and sporting events. The ideal of transparency of Mirziyoyev’s “new Uzbekistan” still appears rather far from realization.
2024-05-03 20:36:43
#dark #affairs #gas #judo #Mirziyoyevs #circle
