Uzbekistan to set up anticorruption agency to monitor incomes and expenditures of government officials

AKIPRESS.COM - Incomes and spending by public servants will be monitored in Uzbekistan, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at the meeting with scholars, industrialists and top managers of research institutes in late January, local media report. The President said some $400,000 were found in the house of a customs checkpoint chief.
"A chief of the small customs checkpoint had $400,000. We are working so hard so that the world community recognizes us... But what will get if a chief of the customs checkpoint has $400,000?" the President interrogated.
President Mirziyoyev said when expenditures of a public servant do not correspond to expenditures, it is necessary to create the environment where officials will be held accountable.
"Why are we setting up anti-corruption agency? This is the agency to practically assess corruption on behavior of ministers and their lifestyles, in what houses they live, what cars they buy and where their children study. Every government official will answer these questions," the local media cited President Mirziyoyev as saying.
The draft of the presidential order was published in October 2019, which suggests a step-wise introduction of a requirement to declare incomes, property and expenditures for government officials since January 1, 2020.
The order has not been signed yet.