President: "If it hadn’t been for the cases of corruption and bribery, our state budget would have significantly increased"

"We will take the necessary steps for the development of each district," President Ilham Aliyev said while receiving in a video format Rafig Jalilov due to his appointment as head of Jalilabad District Executive Authority and Rashad Taghiyev due to his appointment as head of Shamkir District Executive Authority.

Report informs, citing AzerTag, that, according to the head of state the completion of major infrastructure projects does not mean that the govenment will cut off this financial and material support.

"No, we will still provide it, but we will provide it in a focused manner and only if all the rules are taken into account. Also, the arrested heads of executive authority – I am talking not only about Jalilabad and Shamkir districts – had been flagrantly violating tender procedures. In other words, companies close to several heads of executive authority or their deputies usually won tenders for the implementation of state projects and public procurement. Why? Because here, too, cases of bribery and embezzlement were widespread. This causes great losses to the state budget. If it hadn’t been for the cases of corruption and bribery, our state budget would have significantly increased and our opportunities would have expanded. We are channeling the additional revenues of the ongoing reforms, first and foremost, into improving people's living standards. We are still in the ninth month of the year, but as a result of transparency and reforms, there is a surplus in the state budget, and we are channeling it into the social protection of our people," the Azerbaijani leader said.