Purchase of goods for newly formed polling stations was carried out by proxy company

Baku/24.01.23/Turan: On January 23, the Central Election Commission announced the conclusion of a contract for the purchase of goods necessary for the newly formed polling stations. Data from the public procurement register indicate that the contract had been executed before the new year.

In July last year, following the results of the CEC meeting , a decision was adopted to form 832 new precinct election commissions (PECS) in 103 electoral districts due to the growth in the number of voters. 

Note IA Turan counted the lists of voters on the CEC website https://www.infocenter.gov.az/default.aspx. There are 5,437 PECS for 125 district election commissions in the country. In turn, the CEC previously reported that after the formation of 832 new PECS, their number reached 6,274. Thus, the voter lists for the newly formed PECS have not yet been formed.

At that, the CEC paid 1 million 67.300 manats ($627.800 dollars) to the winner of the tender for the purchase of necessary goods for new PECS. There is no information about the product lists. In this regard, IA Turan appealed to the CEC tender commission. They refused to answer questions and asked to address them to the press service of the commission. 

However, the office phone of the CEC press secretary Shahin Asadov did not answer calls during working hours. Besides, he did not respond to the appeals of the Turan correspondent on the social platform. Therefore, the accumulated questions were addressed to the head of the CEC Mazakhir Panakhov in the form of an information request.

The questions also relate to three procurement contests of the CEC held in the last quarter of the last year for the purchase of inventory, equipment, tables and stands for voter lists of newly formed PECS. The CEC has not yet disclosed their results, as well as information about the related contracts.

The first contract for the purchase of necessary goods for the new PEC was awarded to "RS7-Group" LLC. This company was established in April 2021, in one of the apartments in the village of Yeni Guneshli in Baku. In the same month, two more companies were created ("Enjoy- 2021" LLC and "Merkar-AZ" LLC), whose legal representative is Natig Nasir oglu Guliyev, director of "RS7-Group" LLC. 

There is no public information about the activities of these companies, as well as the identity of Natig Guliyev. There is no information about Natig Guliyev as a voter. It is only known that "Enjoy-2021" LLC (TIN: 1904697731) and "Merkar-AZ" LLC (TIN: 1904696381) have obligations to the state budget totaling 4,311 manats.

According to the State Tax Service, in January this year "West Baku Təminat" LLC was registered headed by Natig Guliyev at the address: Baku, Aga Nematulla str., 51 which also managed to owe unpaid taxes https://vergiler.az/news_print.php?announcement_id=49334 (TIN: 1505778941). 

Note that over 40 companies were registered at this address in a short period (October 2021 – November 2022). The directors of these companies are the same persons, which indicates the dubious nature of their origin. As a rule, such one-day companies are used by certain persons in public procurement, as well as import operations and export of currency outside the country under various schemes. -08B-