The Call of the Chairman of the Management Board of “Uzbekistan Airways” Joint-Stock Company to counteract and prevent corruption

Dear Uzbekistan Airways colleagues and passengers!

Consecutive measures to implement an internationally recognised system to counteract and prevent corruption are nowadays taken in our country.

In particular, essential conditions were created to exercise effective and efficient social control over public administration sector. This control is exercised through ensuring openness and transparency of activities of government agencies and organisations as well as governmental staff becoming accountable to society.

Corruption is a huge social threat and is one of the serious factors, which hinders effective development of a country and its society. Corruption causes considerable damages to and impairs stability and security of the socio-economic and political development of the country. Therefore, government willingness to effectively counteract corruption demonstrates to the world community how civilised a country is and how committed it is to democratic principles.

Defeating corruption has been the main priority of our government.
The New Uzbekistan’s policy rests on big ideas like supremacy of law, bringing up principles of justice in society, introducing modern and effective ways of public administration, as well as building a mentality of zero tolerance to any display of corruption.

According to the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On counteracting corruption”, counteracting corruption rests on principles like lawfulness, priority of rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of people, openness and transparency, interaction between government and civil society, supremacy of corruption preventive measures and unavoidability of punishment for corruptive violations. According to the same law, one of the main priority of the government anticorruption policy is raising legal awareness and culture of people, as well as making corruption intolerable in society.

It is well known that in recent years our government initiated large-scale reforms to fight corruption, prevent corruption related violations and stop any display of corruption in governmental sector and society.

Likewise, Resolution of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated July 6, 2021 No. 5177 “On additional measures for effective organisation of anticorruption activities” required all governmental agencies and organisations (including Council of Ministers of the Republic of Karakalpakstan and all regional administrations of Uzbekistan, including Tashkent city) to launch their internal anticorruption control departments, which should become functional
from October 1, 2021.

Pursuant to the above resolution, Anticorruption and compliance department was established at “Uzbekistan Airways” Joint-Stock Company (hereinafter referred to as “Uzbekistan Airways”). This department is responsible for taking measures for early detection and prevention of corruption, eliminating conditions for and causes of corruption, preventing conflicts of interest and making corruption intolerable in the company.

Uzbekistan Airways’ fundamental values include: adherence to law and to highest ethical standards of doing business, zero tolerance to any form of corruptive violation of law with respect to business partners and among employees, adherence to international and local anticorruption regulations for the sake of enhancing business reputation of the company and protecting it against corruptive infringements.

Uzbekistan Airways is taking consecutive steps to minimise human factor in areas such as passenger and cargo transportation, personnel hiring and the like. Uzbekistan Airways is on its way to introduce an anticorruption system compliant to ISO 37001:2016 international standard, which system shall become functional in 2023.

Though taken measures would certainly contribute to positive results, they alone will not be enough to fully prevent and counteract corruption.
We, regardless who we are – Uzbekistan Airways’ passengers or employees – should become intolerable to corruption in the first place. Each of us should follow principles of honesty and good faith at our jobs. Corruption starts with small and unnoticed things. Therefore, each moment and case deserves our utmost attention. Without necessarily participating in a corruption offense, our employee or another person may witness how his colleague or a person familiar to him commits an act of corruption.

Dear Uzbekistan Airways’ employees and passengers! I encourage you to follow Uzbekistan Airways’ Anticorruption Policy at all times (document available on the company’s official website), block and prevent corruption violations as well as actively participate in building a zero tolerance mentality towards corruption.

If you became aware of corruptive actions by Uzbekistan Airways employees, please, inform us in one of the following ways:

- by using Uzbekistan Airways’ official website, “Anticorruption” section (https://corp.uzairways.com/ru/form/protivodeystvie-korrupcii);

- by sending us email to anticorruption@uzairways.com;

- by sending us a Telegram message using @compliance_control_uzairways;

- by leaving a message on our Facebook account
at https://facebook.com/uzairways.official;

- by calling our Contact Centre on +998-78-140-0200.