Uzbekistan: fraud for almost a billion sums was revealed in kindergarten
More than 983 million sums were stolen according to various schemes by the administration of the children’s preschool institution No. 16 in Zangiata district of Tashkent region. This was revealed by the inspection of the Prosecutor General’s Office, which was carried out together with the Ministry of Preschool Education.
The director and his accomplices hired 37 sham workers, among whom were four of their relatives. During the period from 2014 to 2020, they “earned” 983.5 million sums by falsifying documents and receiving salaries for these people. Due to stolen food, damage to children’s meals is unknown.
Until 2017, there was no market conversion of the national currency; at the current exchange rate, $ 1 is equal to 10,519 sums. Taking into account any exchange rate calculations, the scale of theft is estimated at many tens of thousands of dollars.
Under a fraudulent scheme, the unnamed head of the preschool educational institution received other people’s salaries and bonuses, and false workers got work experience, often being labor migrants outside the country.
Earlier inspections show that most often the positions of a kindergarten teacher, a kindergarten teacher’s assistant, kitchen workers, a laundress, and a cleaning lady fall under criminal employment. This “HR” policy is practiced throughout the country and is burdened by large-scale theft of meat, milk, fruits and vegetables in kindergartens.
The Ministry of Preschool Education recognizes the negative impact of all this on the quality of activities and the morale of employees of institutions in all regions of the country, but they can no longer compensate for the lost development opportunities and the missing vitamins and calories in the nutrition of hundreds of thousands of babies.
While “dead souls” and caches of food remain signs of the preschool education system, the Minister of culture, Ozodbek Nazarbekov, launched an initiative in the cultural upbringing of the younger generation, entailing the strengthening of mentality and patriotism. According to the official Telegram channel of the newspaper “Madaniyat”, after lunch, kindergarten teachers should play national music “in accordance with established norms” for children in kindergarten.
