The commission from the Ministry of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations has carried out an inspection in the Consumers’ Union of Balkan velayat. In the course of the inspection it transpired that no documents had been issued for 180 tons of cottonseed oil delivered to the velayat from other regions.
According to a source of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”, the commission suspects that the oil, which was supposed to be sold to residents at fixed prices in state-run stores, was resold to Azerbaijan through intermediaries.
Officials from the Ministry were reluctant to get the law-enforcement agencies involved in the investigation and demanded that the executives of the Consumers’ Union prepare and provide the invoices signed by store managers certifying that the oil had allegedly been sold to residents of the velayat.
Many store managers refuse to sign the falsified document.According to them, no oil has been supplied to their stores from April to July 2020.Only sunflower oil from Russia and Iranian corn oil was available.
Signing of this document means that the store will be obliged to pay for the produce which has not arrived yet.
However, according to a shop assistant from one of the stores, numerous violations can be identified in the work of almost every store manager. The executives are taking advantage of this situation to put pressure on store managers to sign the invoices.
Let us recall that Turkmenistan has been experiencing a shortage of vegetable oil since March, 2020.
Owing to a shortage of domestic produce, the volume of oil imports from the EAEU countries has increased manifold.