Tax Committee Explains “17 Billion-Soum Tender” as a Technical Error

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Information circulated on social media claiming that Yangi Texnologiyalar JSC had allegedly purchased an electronic translator through a tender for 17 billion soums.

According to Uzbekistan’s Tax Committee, the matter does not concern the purchase of a standalone device but the introduction and maintenance of a specialized module for the tax service’s electronic document management system.

This module performs spell-checking and converts texts into various alphabets using artificial intelligence technologies.

The service costs 17 soums per transaction. A technical error occurred when the information was published on the state procurement system: instead of 100 million transactions, the system mistakenly listed 1 billion transactions, resulting in the appearance of a 17 billion-soum total instead of the actual 1.7 billion soums.

The error was automatically detected during the treasury control stage and blocked by the system.

The operation did not pass the confirmation procedure and was not admitted to the tender.