11.3 billion soums of budget money is embezzled

"It was found that employees of the preschool education department of Denov district in the Surkhandarya region embezzled 11.3 billion soums of budget money. This was reported by the press service of the Chamber of Accounts.

During a remote risk analysis, suspicious payments related to the illegal spending of nearly 3 billion soums of budget funds were revealed in some district pre-school education organizations. Based on this, the calculation and payment of wages and equivalent payments to employees from 2020 to 2023 were examined on-site.

As a result of the investigation, it was discovered that the budget funds amounting to 11.3 billion soums were illegally embezzled by certain responsible employees of the centralized accounting department of the preschool education department.

Specifically, 4.8 billion soums in wages were calculated and illegally embezzled in the names of 141 individuals who did not work in preschool education organizations between 2022 and 2023. The responsible employees of this organization paid 136.4 million soums in the name of a close relative who does not actually work, and 279.4 million soums in the name of 9 individuals working as designers, accountants, and plumbers in the pre-school education department. These payments were illegally embezzled through the creation of fake payment records.

Additionally, 529.1 million soums, originally allocated for employees' salary payments in the budget organization's cost estimate, were misappropriated for newspaper and magazine subscriptions without the employees' consent and without being deducted from their salaries.

"Regarding the identified cases, the authorities are instructed to take the measures specified in the legislation and to implement appropriate measures to prevent financial mistakes and shortcomings in the future. An instruction was sent to the Ministry of Pre-School and School Education and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and the documents formalized in connection with the study were submitted to the General Prosecutor's Office for legal assessment," the message reads."