The operations of former Dushanbe Mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev's office are being examined by investigators two weeks after he was replaced, according to Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service.

The deputy chief of Tajikistan's Anticorruption Agency, Iliyos Idriszoda, said on January 27 that a preliminary investigation had been launched into possible embezzlement of state funds by staff members during Ubaidulloyev's long tenure as mayor of the capital.

Idriszoda told journalists that the investigation was launched after the agency received complaints from several Dushanbe residents who suspected that state funds allocated for the construction of apartment blocks were misused.

He said that the new mayor, Rustam Emomali, had also asked the agency to look into the situation.

Meanwhile, EurasiaNet.org reports that the deputy head of the state anticorruption agency, Abdukarim Zarifzoda, said, “Even though the activities of the mayor’s office are checked every two years, and so the next inspection was to have been in 2018, the mayor of Dushanbe has filed a request with the anticorruption agency for a review.  A request was addressed to the mayor’s office itself on two occasions by citizens concerning the implementation of the Affordable Housing project.”

The Affordable Housing project was launched in Dushanbe in 2013 and was intended to begin settling needy people into new homes by September 2015.  Construction work was serially delayed, however, creating much discontent among the homebuyers that had already put down deposits. Some, concerned they would end up without homes or their money, demanded to be reimbursed, EurasiaNet.org say, noting that although complaints over the project have been rumbling for more than a year, anticorruption officials waited for unknown reasons until now to begin their probe.