Uzbekistan: Civil society hindered in ability to contain COVID-19 corruption, 10 August 2020

Shortly after Uzbekistan began battling to contain its coronavirus outbreak, it successfully solicited aid from international financial institutions, but there are concerns some of that money is now being stolen.

Speaking last week, the chair of the Senate, Tanzila Narbayeva, said the anti-corruption agency had discovered that more than $171,000 have been embezzled by employees with the sanitary-epidemiological service, a department within the Health Ministry, since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

“We are concerned by the cases of embezzlement of money earmarked for measures to counteract the spread of coronavirus,” she said.