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Nearly 80 billion soums in construction financing has been frozen across Uzbekistan after inspectors found defects that builders were ordered to correct before any further payments could be released, Deputy Construction Minister Kozim To’laganov told the eleventh plenary session of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis on 6 January.
To’laganov said that roughly 20,000 buildings are under construction in the country each year. In 2020, inspectors conducted close to 60,000 site checks and issued mandatory remediation orders on approximately 15,000 of them. Funding for those projects was suspended until each defect was physically corrected. “We froze close to 80 billion soums until quality is restored,” he said.
A Transparency System Extended Nationwide
The deputy minister said the government issued three separate resolutions in 2020 aimed at tightening construction oversight. Each registered project is now assigned a dedicated inspector who visits sites on a regular schedule. To’laganov said Tashkent city and Tashkent region had already been brought onto a “transparent construction” digital platform, which logs every instruction an inspector issues at a given site, the deadline set for compliance, and whether that deadline was met — making the record visible to oversight bodies. From 1 January 2021, the system is being rolled out to all construction projects across the country.
The national information system, called “Shaffof Qurilish” (Transparent Construction), is designed to maintain a continuously updated electronic database covering new construction, reconstruction and major renovation projects. It is intended to record the conclusion of contracts between clients and design organisations, the disbursement of advance payments, and the completion of project documentation — including whether design and cost estimates have passed mandatory expert review and whether the associated fees have been paid.
Ratings and Reporting Mechanisms to Follow
To’laganov indicated that two further measures are in preparation: a performance rating system for design and construction organisations, and a new procedure for reporting construction defects. Neither had been formally adopted at the time of his statement.
The financing freeze and the digital oversight platform together represent the government’s most concrete public accounting to date of how it intends to enforce construction standards on the roughly 20,000 sites active at any one time — and to create a paper trail that links inspectors, contractors and public funds in a single auditable record.