15:12, 28 мая 2020, Bishkek - 24.kg news agency , Maria ORLOVA
The State Service for Combating Economic Crimes of Kyrgyzstan has revealed a corruption scheme for carrying out road and transport control on Bishkek-Osh road. Press service of the state agency reported.
Three employees of the State Directorate of Bishkek-Osh highway under the Ministry of Transport and Roads were detained.
The ministry reminded that hardware and software complexes for charging fees have been installed in 2018 to control the receipt of payments for travel through tunnels at the stationary Sosnovka and Kara-Kul checkpoints on Bishkek-Osh highway. «The State Directorate, being a structural unit of the Ministry of Transport and Roads, collects money for travel at established rates for domestic, foreign and heavy vehicles,» the state agency said.
Some employees made incorrect changes to the automated system, namely, they changed the country of origin of a vehicle, reduced the actual dimensions of a vehicle, but at the same time charged a fare according to the established rates. They appropriated the difference.
In addition, the facts of passage of vehicles without entering data into the automated system were revealed.
«Accordingly, the payment did not get into the budget, but into the pockets of dishonest employees,» the state agency noted.
The Financial police added that such illegal actions could only be possible with the connivance and patronage of senior officials of structural units of the Ministry of Transport and Roads, to whom all data from checkpoints were automatically sent, but they did not take specific measures to prevent such facts.
According to the agency, from December 1, 2018 to March 1, 2020, the employees of the State Directorate preliminarily damaged the state budget in the amount of over 10 million soms at only one stationary post.
«On May 26, three operators of the structural unit of the Ministry of Transport and Roads were detained as suspects and placed in the temporary detention center of the Central Internal Affairs Department of Bishkek. Investigative actions within the pre-trial proceedings on the case, in order to identify the involved persons from among senior officials of structural units of the Ministry of Transport and Roads, are ongoing,» the state agency added.