Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06DUSHANBE576
2006-03-30 12:27:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Dushanbe
Cable title:  

CORRUPTION, TAJIK STYLE: "WE PAY FOR EVERYTHING BUT THE AIR

Tags:  PGOV PHUM ECON SOCI TI 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 DUSHANBE 000576 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/30/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM ECON SOCI TI
SUBJECT: CORRUPTION, TAJIK STYLE: "WE PAY FOR EVERYTHING BUT THE AIR
WE BREATHE."


CLASSIFIED BY: Richard Hoagland, Ambassador, US Embassy
Dushanbe, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 DUSHANBE 000576

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 3/30/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM ECON SOCI TI
SUBJECT: CORRUPTION, TAJIK STYLE: "WE PAY FOR EVERYTHING BUT THE AIR
WE BREATHE."


CLASSIFIED BY: Richard Hoagland, Ambassador, US Embassy
Dushanbe, State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (SBU) During EmbOff's March visit to southwestern agrarian
Farkhar district, Mahmadali Hakimov, head of "Zamin," a
successful conglomerate with businesses in farming, textiles,
construction, banking, and hotels, philosophized about the high
price of doing business in Tajikistan. "We pay for everything
but the air we breathe," he lamented. When asked who could curb
corruption, Hakimov admitted he had too many business equities
to rock the boat and suggested that only outsiders could improve
the environment.


2. (U) Everyone agrees corruption is an enormous problem --
Tajiks ruefully note Transparency International considers their
country ranked eighth worst (an improvement of three places from
last year),and a recent survey published in the "Asia-Plus"
newspaper revealed that if given the chance to talk to President
Rahmonov, 65% of those surveyed would talk about corruption.
(NOTE: The other topics reported were Palestine, the November
presidential elections, life, or their personal problems. END
NOTE.)


3. (U) But no one quite knows how to tackle the issue, and no
one wants to risk being cut out or cut off by taking a stand.
President Rahmonov has spoken publicly for the need to root out
corruption, but government and international efforts have yet to
dent the pervasive culture of bribes, kickbacks and "service
charges." Hakimov's complaint and reluctance to step up and
confront corruption head on, preferring someone else to take the
risk, represents a common response.


4. (U) This cable provides anecdotal examples of corruption and
its effects in Tajikistan as part of a coordinated reporting
effort with other Central Asian embassies to highlight regional
issues. Please see corresponding corruption reports from
Almaty, Bishkek, Kabul and Tashkent.

CORRUPTION HERE, THERE, EVERYWHERE


5. (U) Without exaggeration, from cradle to grave, Tajik
citizens face difficult choices everyday, to grease the wheels

or go without basic services and documents. Below are a few
common sectors where most people no longer question the "service
fees."


6. (SBU) Utilities:
To keep the phone connected, the lights on and the water
running, many families pay someone who "takes care of it,"
meaning a "service" fee. In some cases, the service fee ensures
the customer a lower rate of tariff than the official electric
rates. A Western NGO, for example, admitted paying "service
fees" to ensure that they have a consistent supply of
electricity.


7. (SBU) Education:
An Embassy staff member noted his brother was doing well at a
local university, but he needs to pay for the exams (around 20
somoni, or $6),or he won't receive a passing grade. Teachers'
official monthly salaries range between $6-100 so students are
forced to make up the difference. Sometimes the bribe takes the
form of personal items like clothing, food, or equipment.
Students and parents say that most often it is cash, ranging
from several dollars to pass a mid-year test, to several
thousand dollars for a place at a top university. A teacher may
force students to make payments regardless of whether the
student knows the subject or not. In some cases, professors
force students to purchase books not in the curriculum.
Students in urban schools may make monthly payments of 5-10
somoni. Teachers may play favorites with students who pay

DUSHANBE 00000576 002 OF 004


regularly, thus disadvantaging poor students who cannot afford
even a modest bribe.


8. (U) Medicine and Health:
Currently, all medical services are officially free of charge,
but each and every patient pays under the table for
examinations, laboratory tests, written prescriptions, and
hospitalization, or just to get an earlier appointment.
State-funded doctors earn an official salary even less than
teachers ($5-30 a month),so wages are supplemented by extra
payments from grateful patients, sometimes in the form of food
or goods. We have heard anecdotal cases of doctors refusing to
provide emergency medical care until the patient or his
relatives pay.


9. (U) In August 2005, the Ministry of Health inaugurated the
"Guaranteed Benefit Package," introducing co-payments for
certain medical services, but President Rahmonov suspended the
initiative less than two months later due to public backlash at
taking away their "free" medical services. Physicians in
Qurghon-Teppe expressed to PolOffs resistance about a
fee-for-service approach to family medicine. With the new
system, physicians would receive a regulated (although
considerably higher) monthly wage but patients would pay fees to
a central system, not to the individual doctors, thus capping
their incomes, albeit at a living wage.


10. (SBU) Transport:
"Rudaki Avenue is a toll road," quipped the American head of
Mercy Corps about Dushanbe's tree-lined main avenue.
Strategically stationed every 50-100 meters, traffic police with
"pazhaluista" ("please") sticks routinely pull cars over.
Several taxi drivers told PolOff one somoni (30 cents) would get
them on the road again, unless their documents were not in
order. The traffic police are not aggressive about their
shakedowns. A number of Dushanbe-based foreigners have
successfully employed the strategy of pretending to not speak
Russian, smiling and shrugging until the frustrated traffic
officer waves them off. Traffic police extract payments on all
Dushanbe's major streets, and on the main arteries and
checkpoints outside the capital.


11. (C) Taxes and Inspections:
Dushanbe has very ineffective centralized control over regional
and local branch tax inspection offices throughout the country.
Branch offices hire whom they want locally but face enormous
local government interference. The number of tax inspectors in
the field offices quite often exceeds the workload. A Kazakh
diplomat told PolOff that taxes and inspections were the two
issues Kazakhstani businessmen complained about most in
Tajikistan, and that Kazakh President Nazarbayev would raise it
when Tajik President Rahmonov visited Astana May 4.


12. (SBU) A small business in Tajikistan faces myriad
inspections, from checking receipts in the cash register to
verifying licenses and registration. According to the IFC's
2003 Business Environment Survey in Tajikistan, small and medium
enterprises were inspected an average of 16 times and 98% of
respondents admitted making unofficial payments during the
inspections. The manager of successful local cafi reported that
the tax inspectors asked her not to ring up their food purchase
on the cash register. She refused, knowing that had she done
that, they could have found her guilty of the exact violation
they were there to check, and ask for an even bigger payment to
keep her out of trouble.


13. (C) Documentation:
Anecdotes abound in Dushanbe about the various prices for
getting a passport or visa from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs'
Consular Department. Bahrom Kholnazarov, Chief of the Tajik
MFA's Consular Department and close relative of President
Rahmonov, is responsible for issuing not only visas to foreign
citizens but also international passports to Tajik citizens who

DUSHANBE 00000576 003 OF 004


desire to travel outside of Tajikistan. (NOTE: Tajikistan
still requires that citizens have a domestic passport for
identification and an international passport for travel. END
NOTE.) Ask a Tajik about the hassles and "service charges"
required to receive an international passport and be prepared
for a litany of curses. Kholnazarov makes a corrupt killing.
Though the required fee for processing is nominal, Kholnazarov
charges between $50 and $250 per passport, depending on how
badly - or quickly - the passport is needed. For a brief time
Russia allowed Tajik migrant workers to travel and work in the
Russian Federation on Tajik domestic passports, but dissent from
the Russian Duma, several airlines, and the Russian border
forces, rendered this law moot. Kholnazarov is guaranteed
enormous money every year and has no desire to leave, even
reportedly turning down a Deputy Foreign Minister position. One
source recounted to EmbOff, "Kholnazarov, after being scolded by
another high-ranking Tajik official, pointed to a picture of
Rahmonov and said, 'As long as he is President, I will be
Consular Chief.'"


14. (SBU) Air Travel:
For airline travel, seat availability often depends on whom you
know, and the extra charges can range from $6 on internal
flights to $25 for flights to Moscow. At the NGO forum, a
number of European NGOs complained about the 10 percent add-on
to the price of any ticket. A local NGO worker had to appeal to
a friend in the Parliament for a ticket to Moscow. The NGO
worker got a seat, but paid $315 for a ticket with an official
price of $289.


15. (SBU) Tajik Air has no set pricing structure or
standardized reservation system. When seats are not available,
that extra payment can often result in a seat materializing at
the last minute. (Or worse, in the case of the Embassy,
sometimes an appeal to the Ministry of Security is the only way
to get a seat for an outgoing diplomat.) A position as branch
manager at a Tajik Air office can be bought for as much as
$30,000, thus giving the manager the ability to charge up to an
extra $20 per ticket. Given 200 seats per plane a few times a
week, this can quickly provide a high return on the initial
investment, not to mention extra side revenue earned through
freight costs.


16. (SBU) Registration:
The degree of difficulty of getting any organization or
individual registered can depend on how much "assistance" one
pays for. One NGO recounted its lawyer's story with a Ministry
of Justice official. "All your papers are in order," he told
her. "However, I will need to talk to Mr. Franklin to decide
whether I'll approve it." She left, puzzled, and returned a few
days later. "You don't get it, do you?" the official asked. "I
need to talk to BEN Franklin. I bought my job, and I need to
make my money back, as do the people below me and above me."
(COMMENT: We find Tajik officials rarely talk so frankly with
expats, but will be more forthcoming with their fellow Tajiks
about expectations and payments. END COMMENT.)

SO WHAT? ISN'T EVERY COUNTRY A LITTLE CORRUPT


17. (U) The ramifications of such widespread corruption are
almost impossible to quantify, but the result is poor medical
care, poor public health, and under-educated and unqualified
workers using false documents for positions for which they are
not trained. The custom of buying a position, be it as a
traffic cop or mid-level bureaucrat, perpetuates itself as each
person needs to get his investment back from those below.

WHAT TO DO? WHAT IS BEING DONE?


18. (C) President Rahmonov and other high-level authorities
have talked about the need to root out corruption; high-level
staffing changes in the presidential administration and various
ministries have helped improve the government's image by

DUSHANBE 00000576 004 OF 004


removing some notoriously corrupt officials. The head of the
Presidential Apparatus's Department of International Relations
was dismissed in February; he was rumored to demand money from
any official nominated for training or business trips to foreign
countries or his department would refuse to process the
government's approval. However, those closest to President,
like Consular Chief Kholnazarov, remain immune.


19. (SBU) The government itself has established an
anti-corruption task force. The First Deputy Prosecutor General
who oversees the anti-corruption unit, told Embassy staff the
Parliament is drafting new anti-corruption legislation. He
added that the special unit working at the Prosecutor General's
Office needs residents to report incidents of corruption. He
stated the unit could not be effective without help from Tajik
citizens.


20. (C) In January, the Swedish International Development
Agency (SIDA) pledged $1.1 million to UNDP to fight corruption
and used focus groups to develop a white paper for the
government to formulate anti-corruption strategies. The white
paper currently exists only in Russian and has yet to be
circulated widely among the donors or others. A second
component aims to strengthen Parliament's role in monitoring and
controlling the state budget. (NOTE: An Amcit consultant working
on anti-corruption projects at the UNDP quit after three months
due to his frustration with what he saw as UNDP's unwillingness
to confront anything the government found uncomfortable. END
NOTE.) SIDA also plans a public awareness campaign to teach
integrity in the schools.


21. (SBU) The Ministry of Economy and Trade is preparing to
launch a website developed by IMF and UNDP to encourage
government transparency that will include a "complaint box,"
where individuals or businesses can write to the Ministry if
they are having problems with registration, obtaining a license
or excessive inspections. However, the mechanism for responding
to complaints has yet to be worked out so that complaints are
not used to target troublemakers, and issues of confidentiality
remain unresolved.


22. (U) Despite a tradition of self-censorship and shying away
from any topics remotely critical of the government, the press
is becoming bolder about talking about corruption. "Asia-Plus,"
a popular Russian language newspaper, published a full-page
article on corruption and its toll on Tajikistan. On a local
level, the Kulob Civil Society Support Center held a roundtable
meeting in January, inviting political parties and local NGOs,
as well as the Kulob Mayor's office. Their conclusion:
corruption had corroded the high echelons of power so much that
it was impossible to combat corruption in Tajikistan from above
and everything depended on society itself.


23. (SBU) COMMENT: The fact that people are talking about
corruption more openly gives hope that a few courageous
individuals will take a principled stand, thus creating momentum
and public support for the nascent anti-corruption efforts. But
most Tajiks have much to lose by refusing to pay, or refusing to
take, bribes. Plus, many Tajiks see the luxury cars and
successful businesses of President Rahmonov's family and his
inner circle, and ask not how they can hold their government
accountable, but how they, too, can get a piece of the growing
wealth. Unless Tajikistan's decision makers realize that more
profits can be made through successful but transparent business
practices than from bribes and kickbacks, the government's
efforts will remain largely superficial. Until then, someone
just might find a way to charge for air. END COMMENT.
HOAGLAND