Friend of small and medium business or entrepreneur?

It should be conceded that the APSMB was set up on December 28, 2017 under a decree of the President of the Azerbaijani Republic (https://president.az/articles/26657). Organizations as legal entities of the public law have been entrusted to develop micro-, small and medium business in the country, advocate interests and solve problems of entrepreneurs, provide some services and, finally, coordinate actions of public and private structures, etc.

The Agency scope of activity provides for the construction of "House of Small and Medium Business" (SMB) to thus localize services for small and medium enterprises (in the matter of training, consultations, information, business-incubator, innovation center, etc.). It is supposed to render 100 G2B (state to business) services to more than 30 public and more than above 1000 "B2B" (business to business) services by private structures for business-processes such as "plan out business", "start business", "develop business". A year has passed since the adoption of appropriate decision; however, a work over creation of the first "House of Small and Medium Business" in Narimanov district of Baku is still underway. In the meanwhile 14 networks of "SMB friends" after a pattern of local management have been founded, and it is planned to bring their number up to 60.

At present, the Agency is led by a board consisting of 5 persons. Deputies chairman of the board are Mehman Abbas (director of the "Caspian Events Ltd" founded in January 2015 and "Caspian Invest Ltd" set up in January 2003), Faiq Abbasov (director of "Finre Konsultinq"). Also, he was awarded with hundreds of thousand manats for his consulting services. Nadir Adilov as an advisor to the chairman of the State Agency for Citizens and Social Innovations under the president of the Azerbaijani Republic worked a director of the "Legal and Consulting Firm "Patronage"; however, he writes nothing about it in his biography. Thus, under a public procurement register, from December 2017 to February this year the public enterprises and organizations paid 150, 000 manats to this firm for consulting services and office leasing.

Head of the Agency apparatus, Shamil Suleymanov confessed to work at key positions in some companies. However, he made reservation that it lasted till 2011.

It has to be kept in mind that Sh. Suleymanly is one of founders of the "Khan bazary" set up in March 2012. Besides, a company "Mers" was registered in his private apartment in September 2013. It"d be appropriate to note that Suleymanly headed the company for some time which changed its name into "Agro-terminal" in 2018. Also, a director of the latter, Taleh Nasibov is a head of the "Azfar-Trans" and "Gate Baku" (in 2016 it was headed by Ramil Nasirov).

It can be added that as a head of "Khan bazary" Ramil Nasirov is Sh. Suleymanov"s companion. Also, an address of the head of the Agency apparatus is a legal address of another company "MPS Green Construction" set up in June 2016.

On June 18 this year, the "Azfar Trans" company received a large-scale contract on deliveries of 36 mln manats-worth 40, 000 tons of ammophos mineral fertilizers from the public company "Agro-leasing".

The "Bilga Group" ("Bilgə Qrup") declared that it is a group in charge of logistic services. Next come the "Gate Baku" company" (customs formalities; representative and transport services); the "Gate Baku Express" (railway and box office receipts, different-type audit); the "Agro-terminal" (cargo terminal and warehousing services); the "Azfar Group" (construction and leasing of mini-pitches) and "Professional football club Zira". This finds endorsement in financial reports published on corporative site of "Azfar Group" at http://azfar.az/files/image/files/Audit%20Reports.pdf. In addition to the "Azfar Group", there are financial reports of the "Azfar-Trans","Azfar Sport Events Promotion" and "Azfar Magna".

It should be noted that there are several companies controlled by groups of "Gate Baku Agro" and "Azfar Export"). Of interest is the fact that domains bilgegroup.az, gatebaku.az and agroterminal.az are registered to the name of Shamil Suleymanly.

Lawyer Akif Gurbanov claims that APSMB being a state structure with a status of legal entity of public law, its employees are not considered as public servants, so public restrictions as set forth in the Law "On Public Service" do not cover them.

However, the Law "On Struggle agasinst Corruption" prohibits functionaries to engage in entrepreneural business: "The ban urges a functionary to

focus on his official duties to ensure quality and effectiveness of his work. A functionary cannot engage in business activity, otherwise he is able to generate revenues through enjoying an advantage of official position".

As viewed by A. Gurbanov, even if a functionary pulls rank, the public opinion will entertain certain doubts. "For instance, a victory in the tender of a functionary-related company may shape an opinion that the vistory became possible due to this person"s service rank". As a consequence, procurement process fuels suspicion and impairs credibility in transparency of state procurements. Hence, a pholosophy of restrictions arising from activities of functionaries engaged in business and other income items is based on an idea that the public trust is not subject to erosion, so people even despite their job position permit no partiality in decision making".

Vusala Guliyeva, a press-seretary of the Agency for Small and Medium Business Promotion, told Astna.biz: "People you spoke about before their recruitment to the Agency have suspended conpanies" activity. This is one of the requirements of legislation in the acceptance process. The Agency is an organization in charge of servicing and promoting entrepreneurs, it has strong views on issues of this sort. I have no hesitation that INN of these persons is not active".