Helping investigative and data journalism in Kyrgyz Republic

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

This year we see a big rise of investigative journalism in Kyrgyz Republic. This is a group effort of foreign Non-Profits like Soros Foundation Kyrgyzstan and UN/WB Agencies who financilly support the movement, local activists and media.

Proud to see, that one of the tools frequently used by journalist in their investigations is the online service I launched in 2017 — OsOO.kg.

OsOO.kg is a free web-service that combines three government databases: Legal Entities registry by Ministry of Justice, Open-Budget and Government Procurement Database of Ministry of Finance.

“OsOO” is a Russian abbreviation for LLC, most used in Kyrgyzstan.

Not sure if it’s correct to call it “databases”. We simply parse the websites (because there are no APIs available), add some technology magic plus empathy towards the folks in newsrooms. The result — is a user-friendly website with nice search, historical snapshots of the legal entities profiles with possible affiliations suggestion.

The service is free for everyone and during the last year is fully supported by my spare time and money.

Stories and Investigations

Since the beginning of 2019 OsOO.kg was used in more than 20 original investigative or data journalism projects. Most of the articles are in Russian.

Radio Azattyk (RFE/RL)

• A list of the newly registered companies who earned more than one million soms on government contracts in 2018

This story is based on my article previously published here.

Kaktus

• Former Kyrgyz President Atambayev close circle
• Investigation: Former President Atambayev partner Subihi Parkhati
• History of the Kyzylompol Uranian Mine and detailed profile of the UrAsia Company
• Exploring potential conflict of interest of the newly elected board of the two state-owned banks

Kaktus published a lot of stories using OsOO.kg. Here you may find the rest of them.

Factcheck.kg

• Matraimovs’ Empire Investigation (Part 1)
• Matraimovs’ Empire Investigation (Part 2)
• Matraimovs’ Empire Investigation (Part 3)
• Who is the real owner of the World Nomad Games brand

24.kg

• Portraits of candidates for the position of the CEO at Kyrgyz State Television

Economist.kg

• Business interests of a former governor Abdraimov

Sputnik Kyrgyzstan

• Journalists found the owner of the freight from the airplane from Kyrgyz Republic crushed in Iran

This is a short list of manually discovered articles with direct links or screenshots of OsOO.kg. If you have any question regarding the service — feel free to drop me a message on info@iifund.org.