DUSHANBE, May 28, Asia-Plus  -- A two-day seminar formally titled “Civil Society and Fight against Corruption” opened in Dushanbe today.

The event staged by the UNDP CO Tajikistan as part of the project for providing transparency and accountability is discussing issues related to initiating campaign on improving the society awareness level and establishing norms for the public sector on presenting reports to the public.  

In the meantime, in a report released at a press conference in Dushanbe, Sherkhon Salimzoda, director of the Agency for the State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, revealed on April 24 that 338 officials have been reprimanded over the first three months of this year and 13 of them have been sacked.

According to him, corruption has shown downward tendency in Tajikistan this year.  “Punishment is an extreme measure in our activity,” said the anticorruption agency chief.  “At present we are laying emphasis on preventing corruption among officials working with the land tenure and law enforcement agencies.”  

            Salimzoda named increased responsibility of top managers of the federally funded enterprises and organizations as well as private companies as one of factors contributing to reduction of corruption in the country.

In all, 248 corruption-related crimes have been registered in the country over the first quarter of this year; of them, 98 are considered grave crimes, 73 are connected with bribery and 82 other crimes are connected with misappropriation of state funds.