DUSHANBE, April 27, 2010, Asia-Plus -- Fattoh Saidov, director of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, told reporters in Dushanbe today that an article about corruption in the Ministry of Agriculture published in the Dushanbe independent weekly Millat (Nation) last January is based on the established facts provided by the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption.

“We have already sent an appropriate letter to the Ministry of Agriculture,” the anticorruption agency director noted, adding that 1.682 million somoni of 5 million somoni misused by the ministry’s structures have already been reimbursed.

We will recall that the Ministry of Agriculture in January this year brought a libel suit against Millat in which it is demanding 1 million somoni (equivalent to some 229,000 U.S. dollars) in damages.  The Millat editor Zohir Davlat noted in January that he was surprised because the report, published last December, was short and purely factual, referring to investigations into corruption within the Ministry of Agriculture that were carried out and published by parliament.  Information in the article was based on results of a parliamentary investigation in which ministry officials were found to have either misused or stole some 5 million somoni of state funds.  Moreover, the agriculture ministry was accorded the right of reply in this case as well.