27/05/2014 - Tajikistan needs to step up its fight against corruption and turn political declarations of commitment into action, says a new OECD report (in Russian).

The report commends Tajikistan for launching important reforms since its last review in 2010 under the auspices of the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP). These reforms include adopting an anti-corruption strategy, drafting legislation in compliance with international standards and establishing an external auditing institution. But a robust legislative framework must be supported by equally strong enforcement.

To improve its capacity to prevent, detect and punish corruption, Tajikistan should:

• Provide effective means for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute high-level corruption cases;

• Bring criminal anti-corruption legislation in full compliance with international standards,;

• Actively involve civil society in anti-corruption efforts;

• Ensure companies can be held liable for corruption;

• Introduce effective mechanisms to control and prevent conflict of interests;

• Conduct regular surveys of corruption trends to develop and monitor anti-corruption policy;

The report also highlights progress in Tajikistan’s efforts to fight corruption, such as introducing obligations for the heads of state and local authorities to prevent corruption in their areas; reforming Tajikistan confiscation regime; and adopting a law on anti-corruption legislative screening.

The full report on Tajikistan (in Russian) is available here.

The IAP is an initiative launched in 2003 to support anti-corruption reform efforts in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, as part of the OECD Working Group on Bribery outreach work under its regional initiative Anti-Coruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

For further information, journalists should contact Mrs Tanya Khavanska at the OECD’s Anti-Corruption Division at (33) 1 45 24 94 43 or anti-corruption.contact@oecd.org.