Corruption in Uzbekistan

Corruption in Uzbekistan is a serious problem. There are laws in place to prevent corruption, but enforcement in terms of laws regarding corruption is very weak. Low prosecution rates of corrupt officials is another contributing factor to the rampant corruption in Uzbekistan. It is not a criminal offense for a non-public official to influence the discretion of a public official. The judicial system faces severe functional deficits due to limited resources and corruption.

In Uzbekistan, corruption is present at virtually every level of society, business, and government. It is also one of the world's most corrupt countries, and among the contributory factors is its possessing the second largest economy in Central Asia, its large reserves of natural gas, and its geographical position between the rival powers of the so-called Cold War II.

Transparency International's 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"), gave Uzbekistan a score of 31. When ranked by score, Uzbekistan ranked 126th among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the worst score was 12 (ranked 180), and the average score was 43. For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among Eastern European and Central Asian countries was 87, the lowest score was 17 and the average score was 45.

“Graft and bribery among low and mid-level officials are part of everyday life and are sometimes even transparent,” states Freedom House, which adds that the ubiquity of corruption helps to “limit equality of opportunity.”

A 2015 report by Amnesty International quotes a businessman who was arrested and tortured in 2011, as saying that corruption in Uzbekistan is a “cancer that had spread everywhere.”