DUSHANBE, October 12, Asia-Plus - A damage caused by untargeted use of funds provided from the country’s budget for purchase of seed potato has amounted to 720,000 somonis (equivalent to US$213,000), Sharif Mulloyev, the deputy head of the State Finance Control Committee, announced at news conference in Dushanbe on October 10. 

According to him, this violation was revealed when auditors from the committee inspected sub-divisions of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).  

Mulloyev noted that the MoA officials had misappropriated these funds by means of preparing fraud documents.  The materials have been sent for further investigation to the Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office, he said.  

“It is already the second case of misappropriation of funds connected with purchase of seed potato over the past two years,” said Mulloyev, “Last year, a damage caused by untargeted use of the funds provided for buying seed potato amounted to 600,000 somonis; among misappropriates was also the name of the deputy agriculture minister.”