Dagestan government fired en masse over corruption allegations

The government of Dagestan has been dismissed following large-scale search operations and the detention of a number of local officials who are accused of embezzling money allocated for the implementation of social programmes.

The acting head of Dagestan, Vladimir Vasilev, has appointed Anatoli Karibov as his acting prime minister.

This decision was made after the heads of the government of Dagestan, Abdusamad Gamidov and his deputies Shamil Isayev and Rayudin Usufov were detained by security forces on 5 February.

‘One of the cases involves fraud committed with the construction of a state educational center in Kaspiski’, the Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote.

Kommersant stated that of the 1 billion roubles (about 17.5 million dollars) allocated from the budget for the construction of the school more than 80 million roubles (about 1.4 million dollars) ended up in the hands of the minister of education, Shakhabas Shakov, and the leaders of the cabinet of ministers who oversaw the project.

A court in Moscow will decide today upon the detainees’ pre-trial sentence.