Fund as of 24 August 2020, including information about the region, customer, supplier, contract size, etc., and
sixteen files contain information for particular types of activity and relevant information about the
procurement process for those activities, i.e. construction of a new hospital in Nukus.
It is important to underline that only information about state procurement was analysed under this study,
excluding subsidises to the companies, support for the social sector, additional payments to medical staff, etc.
The research focuses on state procurement to provide medical equipment, medication and supporting tools
required to combat COVID-19; to construct new medical facilities and quarantine centres; and to construct and
repair non-medical facilities, in particular schools, sports facilities, roads, etc. in Uzbekistan.
The research aims to identify the patterns in spending the funds and determine which lots are problematic
(based on their cost or the type of activity funded), as well as which customers and suppliers indicate a
corruption risk.
Limitations
It was difficult to obtain information from what was disclosed on the webpage of the Ministry of Finance, as this
varied from day to day and depended on the requester’s location. Moreover, the latest file downloaded in
February 2021 contains fewer recordings (number of disclosed lots) than the one downloaded in December
2020. Some of the documents did not provide information on some regions or contract details. Therefore, lack
of access to comprehensive data may be a limitation, as it is challenging to track patterns without the full list
of activities funded. However, the obtained data was enough to come to certain conclusions.
The list of points that raise concern in most cases is done based on analyses of aggregated data. Looking into
individual cases would require far more time and is outside of the scope of this research. Thus, some suspicious
findings might have meaningful explanations which were not identified by the researchers.
Results
Over 45 per cent of the Fund was spent to support the economy (i.e. subsidies to transport companies, energy
companies, etc.), construction of non-medical facilities, water supply and irrigation (Graph 2). This calls into
question the prioritisation of spending in a situation where the country’s health sector is experiencing problems.
For the construction and repair of roads and schools, UZS 1.9 trillion was spent, yet for the construction and
reconstruction of medical facilities only UZS 1.6 trillion was spent. For subsidising state-owned companies,
Uzbekistan spent almost as much as it did for measures to combat the pandemic. The following state-owned
companies in Uzbekistan received over UZS 1.3 trillion, which accounts for half of the state subsidies for the
economy: ‘Thermal Power Plants’, ‘Uzbekneftegaz’ and ‘Uzbekistan Airways’.
3