Umida Tukhtasheva,
Doctor of Law, Professor Deputy Director, the Anti-Corruption Agency of the Republic of Uzbekistan
In the process of development and formation, in a period when all countries constantly intensifying political, economic, social and other relations both within the country and beyond, the national security becomes the foremost. The key tracks in ensuring national security are transformations in the main areas (social, economic, political) to realize the possibility of freely exercising all provided rights and freedoms in conditions of security and ensuring the rule of law.
A special strategic component of ensuring national security is the steadfast fight against corruption. Corruption is a threat that undermines the foundations of all humanity, all societies regardless of form and level of development, strikes at the economy, destroys the principles of the rule of law and sharply reduces the people’s confidence in state policy, hinders the development of democratic institutions. According to the analysis, currently the damage from corruption in the world is about USD 3 trillion.
Corruption poses threats in all spheres of life of the individual, society and the government and undermines the state’s ability to counteract threats to national security. In January 2017, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed the Anti-Corruption Law, which became a breakthrough step. The fight against corruption in Uzbekistan was elevated to the rank of state policy. The head of state in each of his addresses and messages makes focus on the need to bring the perpetrators to legal responsibility, to strengthen the system of preventive measures, and the importance of combating corruption by the whole society.
International experts note that Uzbekistan is the only country in the region that has become a leader in the rate of improvement of the corruption perception indicator in recent years. This became possible due to the state policy, which recognized the fight against corruption as one of the main areas since 2017.
Today, the systematic fight against corruption carried out in Uzbekistan, the implementation and increase in the effectiveness of measures to prevent corruption in all areas, ensuring cooperation between the government and society, ensuring the principle of the inevitability of responsibility for committing corruption offenses determine the basic principles of the government in combating corruption. For the first time in 2023, the constitutional foundations of anti-corruption activities were enshrined (hearing by the Parliament of the annual National Report on Combating Corruption in the Republic of Uzbekistan (Article 93); election by the Senate of the head of the republican anti-corruption body (Article 95). More than 80 regulatory legal acts have been adopted, the practice of identifying priority tasks for each year by adopting state anti-corruption programs has been established aimed at introducing anti-corruption measures, strengthening the responsibility and openness of government agencies, using information technologies and broad involvement of civil society institutions, strengthening public control and more. Standards of integrity in the civil service, preventing corruption risks in the business sector and taking into account the needs of society based on the principle ‘Human interests are above all’ are brought to the fore. Preventive mechanisms aimed at ensuring openness, transparency of activities and increasing government responsibility, reducing bureaucracy and simplifying the provision of public services, preventing corruption are being widely introduced into practice. In particular, compliance control and efficiency rating systems have been established in all government bodies. Public procurement process has been fully digitalized.
The practice of hearing the National Report on Combating Corruption at sessions of the chambers of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan has been introduced. Ratings and indices have been developed to determine the most corruption-prone areas and regions. The projects ‘Corruption-Free Area’ and ‘Corruption-Free Region’, as well as others are being implemented. The anti-corruption education and awareness-raising measures are being introduced in order to form an intolerant attitude towards corruption in the society.
The implementation of the policy of zero tolerance of corruption is carried out through tackling a wide range of issues and undertaking specific measures, including ensuring a systemic analysis of the state of corruption in the country and identifying corruption-prone areas, causes and conditions for committing corruption offenses, eliminating the systemic causes and conditions for corruption offenses; developing and implementing effective mechanisms to combat corruption, including increasing the effectiveness of measures to prevent corruption in the public administration, socio-economic development and entrepreneurship, in the administrative procedures, and in the public procurement; ensuring the effectiveness of anti-corruption expertise of regulatory legal acts and their drafts, improving legislation in combating corruption, introducing international standards in preventing and combating corruption; identifying and suppressing corruption offenses, ensuring compensation for damage caused by these crimes and increasing the level of responsibility for these crimes, etc.
Digital technologies are among key anti-corruption tools for ensuring national security today. The gradual and consistent digitalization of all administrative processes allows us to move to a qualitatively new level in public governance, which builds in effective cooperation with civil society. Information and communication technologies are being widely introduced in all areas to reduce a human factor. In particular, within the framework of the Digital Uzbekistan 2030 Strategy, 370 projects related to the digitalization of the activities of government and economic administration have been implemented. The E-Anticorruption project has been launched to prevent corruption risks in government agencies and organizations.
The Anti-Corruption Agency has established a permanent monitoring system for the timely posting of socially significant information subject to posting as open data in the designated resources. As a result of this activity, more than 950 open data sets have been posted in the official resources of the government bodies, and a practice of constant updating of open data has been established.
The introduction of the Openness Index in Uzbekistan has become one of the significant steps towards taking the transparency in government agencies and organizations to a qualitatively new level, further enhancing a culture of accountability to society. Due to a complete digitization of the Index assessment system, the wider public have got the opportunity to online monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the work carried out through index.anticorruption.uz platform.
The effectiveness of reforms aimed at ensuring the transparency of government agencies in Uzbekistan is also gaining recognition in the international community. In particular, Uzbekistan has significantly improved its position in a number of international rankings.
For example, scoring 66 points Uzbekistan ranked 30th in the world and first in Central Asia in ODIN Index by Open Data Watch (44th in 2020 with 63 points). In the Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International, Uzbekistan has been improving its position for seven year in a row and, in the 2023 Index, climbed up to 121st place among 180 countries (in 2017 – 158th). Measures to combat corruption as an integral element of national security identified among the main reasons for Uzbekistan’s growth in this Index.
The implementation of the above-mentioned reforms is carried out through the adoption of systemic measures in the cooperation of government bodies, representatives of the business sector and civil society institutions. Systemic counteraction to corruption is aimed at enhancing public confidence, business circles, and is designed to contribute to the creation of favorable conditions for ensuring stable and sustainable development of the Republic of Uzbekistan, as well as strengthening the country’s international authority.