DUSHANBE, July 16, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- Damage caused by financial machinations of managers of the Kulob open joint-stock company (OJSC), Pakhtai Kulob (Kulob cotton-ginning plant), to the country’s over the past two years has amounted to some 1.2 million somonis, according to head office of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption in Dushanbe. 

Inspections by officers from the Khatlon anticorruption directorate have revealed numerous financial violations at the Kulob cotton-ginning plant. 

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Sharifbek Sharifov, a spokesman for the anticorruption agency, said that the inspections had revealed that during 2005-2007, the Pakhtai Kulob managers Nourmuhammad Odinayev (warehouse manager), Habibullo Mirzoyev (goods manager), and Iskandar Giyoyev (goods manager) embezzled 1,195,905 somonis.

Criminal proceedings have been instituted against them under provision of Article 245 (embezzlement or misappropriation) and an investigation is under way.