Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- In Samarkand, fraudsters come up with different ways to deceive customers and get extra benefits from this in their pockets. Recently, the activities of officials of the gas supply company Samarkandtumangaz were disclosed, who embezzled 252.9 million soums when supplying cylinders with liquefied gas to consumers, the press service of the Department for Combating Economic Crimes under the General Prosecutor’s Office reported.

It is noted that the employees received 3,000 soums each, allegedly for the installation of 32,830 cylinders with liquefied gas to consumers. In addition, by collecting up to 26 thousand soums instead of the established 22.4 thousand soums for each bottle of liquefied gas, the employees appropriated 252.9 million soums.

A criminal case was initiated under Article 168 (fraud) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan. An investigation is underway.

According to the press service of the Ministry of Energy, from 15 October 2020, Khududgaztaminot JSC began the implementation of an automated system for monitoring the supply of liquefied gas to the population. That is why a sticker with a special barcode is glued to each gas cylinder, which allows trackingits transfer to each consumer.

This system is implemented in the following order:

Stage I - stickers with a special barcode will be glued to all household gas cylinders;

Stage II - an identification card will be issued to each consumer;

Stage III - connection to the E-gas online system.

All information required by the consumer will be on the identification card. This, in particular, will allow to eliminate cases of unjustified overpricing and other offenses. For example, if the system provides that the interval for issuing gas cylinders is 45 days, then funds from the card will be withdrawn only once every 45 days. That is, it will not be possible to get a gas cylinder again within this period of time.

The automated system guarantees the timely debiting of a fixed amount of payment. This eliminates the possibility of paying in cash for the gas cylinder to the freight forwarder or other technical personnel. This, in turn, will further improve the quality of services and eliminate the corruption component in the system of supplying liquefied gas to consumers.