Independent news. Deeper insight. Uzbekistan and beyond.

Listen to the article

0:00
0:00

Inspectors monitoring Uzbekistan’s road-building programme recorded 5,815 violations during the first nine months of 2026, as the country pursues an ambitious plan to construct and reconstruct 200 kilometres of roads and spend $442 million on the sector within the year.

The figures were disclosed at a government briefing covering the period January through September. Of the total violations, 5,531 were found at road-construction sites proper — 996 related to new construction, 862 to reconstruction works and 3,673 to repair contracts. A further 284 cases involved unauthorised excavation of road surfaces, the installation of artificial obstructions or humps, and failures to restore excavated areas.

Scale of Oversight

The inspectorate registered 5,278 road objects during the reporting period. Of those, 2,854 were newly registered in 2026 and 2,424 were carried over from the previous year. Inspectors conducted 4,298 risk assessments and 1,968 supervisory visits: 1,678 to construction sites and 290 to cases involving road-surface interference.

To address the deficiencies found, authorities issued 2,103 mandatory instructions — 721 to clients and 1,382 to contractors. Of the 1,939 instructions whose deadlines had fallen due by the end of September, 1,519 had been complied with. In addition, 452 administrative protocols were drawn up and forwarded to courts, and 684 formal representations were submitted to relevant organisations.

Digitalisation and Reduced Fines

The briefing also highlighted the digitalisation of oversight procedures through an information system called Yo’l sifat nazorati (Road Quality Control), which handles everything from site registration to commissioning, and records instructions and administrative protocols electronically.

Separately, recent legislative amendments have significantly reduced the fines that the road-quality regulator can impose for non-compliance with its lawful requirements. For private citizens, the penalty was cut from 100 times the base calculation unit to five times; for officials, the ceiling fell from 150 times to seven times the base unit.

Against this backdrop, progress on the year’s infrastructure targets has been partial. Nine projects delivered 110 kilometres of reconstructed road in the first three quarters, with $214.3 million worth of work completed — roughly half the annual spending target of $442 million.

Share.

Bekzod focuses on public procurement, state contracts and government spending. His coverage examines how public funds are distributed, how suppliers are selected and how procurement practices affect competition and accountability.