The Anti-Corruption Agency has detained the former chairman of the board of SK-Pharmacia, Berik Sharip. With the approval of the court, he was arrested. As explained in the department, the former head of the company is suspected of abuse of power in the procurement of medical devices during an emergency situation.
Let us recall that SK-Pharmacia acts as a single distributor for the purchase of medicines and medical devices for free drug provision within the framework of the state volume of free medical care and in the system of compulsory social health insurance.
There have always been a lot of complaints about the company’s work from the public: citizens complained about inflated prices in pharmacies, lack of necessary drugs, and much more. However, the authorities did not notice this criticism.
The situation changed during the pandemic. As it turned out, the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has long been observing the company’s activities.
“I have a question about SK-Pharmacia – what is this organization, who works there and why do they let us down every time? I have been hearing about this organization for the past 15 years. Everyone wants to work there, there are some clan interests around this organization, and so on. What are you going to do? We receive humanitarian aid with medicines from so many countries. It turns out that we have nothing of our own. An entire organization is engaged in the distribution of medicinal products to government organizations. A huge number of people are sitting there, receiving a salary, and it’s high. What is this for? I have an instruction to Shpekbaev, chairman of the Anti-Corruption Agency, we need to look at this organization from the point of view of corruption risks. Well, in the end, we need to figure it out, ”the president said at one of the meetings, instructing to dismiss the head of the company Berik Sharip.
Literally, on the same day, Sharip submitted his resignation letter, and the Anti-Corruption Agency carried out an analysis of corruption risks in SK-Pharmacia LLP.
“In the course of the analysis, the regulatory and legal framework and organizational and management activities of the company are studied in detail. Based on the results of the analysis, specific recommendations will be made to the country’s leadership to improve the efficiency of its activities, optimize the organizational structure, centralize support services, transform business processes, reduce administrative costs and eliminate corruption risks, “the investigator for particularly important cases of the first department of the Agency for anti-corruption Kaisar Barzhaksynov.
On July 21, the head of the anti-corruption department, Alik Shpekbayev, at a meeting of the department’s board, said that investigations were underway against the former management of the Social Health Insurance Fund and SK-Pharmacia.
“Whoever closely monitors social networks will agree with me that people consider corruption, bureaucracy, and irresponsibility to be one of the main reasons for the complication of the situation with COVID-19. And this is quite true, especially in the context of criminal cases against officials of SK-Pharmacia, the Medical Insurance Fund, as well as several medical institutions of local executive bodies. The current analysis of corruption risks in the activities of SK-Pharmacia must be carried out promptly, with the involvement of external experts, “Shpekbaev said.
It should also be reminded that on August 2, on suspicion of embezzlement of budgetary funds, the Vice Minister of Healthcare Olzhas Abishev was detained.
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