Uzbekistan’s Transformation: Strategies and Perspectives

88 Kriticheskiy analiz, zhestkaya disciplina i personal’naya otvetst-
vennost’ (see note 12). 
89 Agenstvo Razvitiya Gosudarstvennoj Sluzhby (ARGOS). 
Decree UP-5843 of 3 October 2019 available at https:// 
lex.uz/ru/docs/4549993; see also “U Mirzieeva posyavilsya 
ARGOS dlja kontrolja chinovnikov” [Under Mirziyoyev 
ARGOS established to control officials], Fergana, 4 October 
2019, https://fergana.agency/news/111393/?country=uz 
(both accessed 11 July 2020). 
been funding young academics to study abroad since 
1993, now falls under the responsibility of the new 
Agency for Civil Service Development in order to 
accelerate the training of highly qualified young spe-
cialists and to recruit as many of them as possible 
to the civil service. Efforts are also under way to per-
suade Uzbeks who have built a career abroad to 
return and place their talents at the service of the 
reforms.
90
Preceding this development, the Prosecutor Gen-
eral announced in August 2019 that all staff in the 
state administration would be required to participate 
in courses on ethics, conflicts of interest and anti-cor-
ruption methods. The background to this is that the 
media liberalisation has seen growing coverage of com-
plaints concerning abuses of power in public offices. 
The regional hokims,
91
who frequently bypass legal 
channels to enforce their decisions and are known to 
resort to violence, have come in for particularly wide-
spread criticism.
92
The president has repeatedly under-
lined that the authoritarian style of the hokims is 
no longer acceptable and publicly criticised their mis-
conduct.
93
However, the hokims – in whose appoint-
ment the local parliaments (kengesh) also have a say 
since a reform in 2017
94
– play a key role in regional 
90 “Umidovcy iz raznych stran vossoedinyatsya po inicia-
tive fonda “El-Yurt Umidi” [Umid scholarship-holders from 
various countries meet at initiative of El-yurt umidi Foun-
dation], Kultura, 5 December 2019, https://kultura.uz/view_ 
2_r_14363.html (accessed 11 July 2020).