Corruption in Tajikistan

[3] According to Transparency International, citizens of Tajikistan consider government bureaucrats and services to be the most corrupt institutions, with police, customs, and tax-collection authorities at the top of the list, followed by college and hospital administrators.

Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the ensuing civil war, waged from 1992 to 1997, left the people largely apathetic and passive in the face of government authority.

Landlocked and poor in natural resources, Tajikistan remains the poorest and least developed of the former Soviet republics, with half of the inhabitants living on less than US$2 a day.

Many Tajiks have emigrated to Russia or Kazakhstan, and the large amounts of money they send back home make Tajikistan one of the more remittance-dependent countries on earth.

[1] Owing to corruption, incompetence, and a lack of public resources and facilities, the country's government administration is highly inefficient, and bribery is common.

[1] U.S. diplomatic cables leaked in 2010 noted that members of Rakhmon's family and inner circle are widely viewed as being the most corrupt people in the country.

The state-run Talco aluminum smelter is owned by British Virgin Islands-based firms, and its revenue, instead of being returned to the state budget, has been used as a slush fund for Tajik officials.

Judges are widely viewed as incompetent, and many of them solicit illegal payments in order to settle cases or release inmates from prison.

[1] As of 2012, about a third of Tajikistan's GDP came from heroin trafficking, which, according to the U.S. State Department, occurs with the aid of law enforcement and government officials.

[2] According to a 2008 World Bank survey, over 44% of business people say they were expected to present civil servants with “gifts,” and over a third had experienced bribery demands during the previous year.

[1] Since many healthcare professionals received their degrees as a result of payment instead of education, the quality of care is often poor, and the best practitioners can demand an even higher bribe than might otherwise be asked.

Many healthcare professionals in Tajikistan receive their degree in medicine via a two-year university correspondence course, at the end of which there is a single in-person exam.

U.S. diplomatic cables written in 2006 and 2007 and leaked in 2010 called “anti-corruption” a new buzzword in Tajikistan, but suggested that there was little substance to the government's purported efforts on this front.

[2] A law passed in 2008 professes to set in place strong safeguards and to protect whistleblowers, but in practice corruption continues to flourish.

In an example of the high-level nepotism that is well-nigh ubiquitous in Tajikistan, the agency has been headed since March 2015 by Rakhmon's son Rustam.

[1] A June 2015 report noted that Rustam had just arrested Hasan Rajabov (sometimes transliterated as Khasan Radzhabov), an adviser to the president, on corruption charges.

Also arrested was Izzattullo Azizov, a member of the state religious affairs committee, who was accused of soliciting $2,000 bribes from Muslims wanting to travel to Mecca for the hajj.

In June 2016, a government newspaper accused Muhiddin Kabiri, the exiled leader of the opposition, of illicit property purchases, and he has avoided prosecution only by staying abroad.

Zaid Saidov, a former industry minister who had attempted to establish an opposition party, was targeted with corruption charges in 2013, and was arrested and sentenced to 51 years in prison.