DUSHANBE, January 27, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- In a report released at a press conference in Dushanbe, Director of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption Fattoh Saidov revealed on January 26 that according to findings by the anticorruption agency, corruption has cost Tajikistan at 70.5 million somoni (equivalent to more than 18 million U.S. dollars) in 2009.

“1,155 inspections conducted by the anticorruption agency last year revealed 70.5 million somoni worth of damage,” he said, noting some 55 percent (38.2 million somoni) of the damage has been reimbursed.

1,535 officials and managers were implicated in wrongdoing, and disciplinary and administrative action was imposed upon them; 69 of them were sacked.

“The findings by the agency show that heads of federally funded organizations have used state funds inefficiently and sometimes they have misused them,” Saidov said.

Over the report period, officers from the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption detected 902 corruption-related crimes, including 372 cases of embezzlement of state funds and fraud and 162 cases of bribery.

In 2009, the anticorruption agency investigated 308 criminal cases instituted against 395 persons and 123 bribery-related cases instituted against 142 people already moved to courts.