Azerbaijan, Baku, 6 February / corr. Trend I. Alizadeh/ In 2007, a case had been filed against 25 municipalities by Office of Public Prosecutor. Mehdi Salimzadeh, the head of the Center for the Work with Municipalities of the Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan, said to journalists on 6 February that the courts has brought in verdict concerning three of these municipalities and the investigation is going on into the cases of the other municipalities.
According to Salimzadeh, the violations of law occurred in municipalities of Absheron, Salyan, Bilasuvar, Sabirabad, Shamakhi, Gobustan and Zagatala region of the country. The heads of these municipalities are accused of the illegal possession of the municipality properties, illegal sale of the government property, damages to the state budget, insufficient budget of the municipalities and hiding the financial documents of the municipalities.
The outflow of the capital worth AZN116,560, was disclosed as a result of the measures taken.
The municipalities have suffered the loss of AZN253, 639, due to the violation of the law.
According to Salimzadeh, the illegal sale of the 301 hectares of land to the citizens and illegal provision of 1817 hectares of land to the people was also revealed during the investigation.
The head of the center said that the complaints about the municipalities became more frequent in 2007, as compared to 2006. About 1,086 complaints were made to the Ministry of Justice in 2006 concerning the activities of the municipalities, the same figure totaled to 1,645 in 2007.
The complaints of the citizens are connected with the violation of the property rules, and also with the fact the people can not get the lands that belong to them legally.
Some 17 criminal cases were filed against the municipalities in 2006.