At the end of October, Kazakh deputies of the Lower Chamber of the Parliament approved the draft republican budget for 2021-2023. On October 21, the draft law was submitted to the Senate (the Upper Chamber of the Parliament). If the senators approve it, then the bill will go to the President for signature, and then come into force.
According to the project, revenues to the budget of Kazakhstan in 2021-2023 will amount to $ 26.2 billion, expenses – $ 31.9 billion. Thus, the budget deficit is planned at the level of $ 6.05 billion, or 3.4% of GDP.
In terms of the bill, there are lines of expenses for each ministry of Kazakhstan. One of the richest departments is the Ministry of Internal Affairs; only the Ministry of Defense is richer than it. According to the budget plan from 2021 to 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan will receive at least $ 1.12 billion from the state treasury. That is, the budget of one Ministry of Kazakhstan is practically equal to the budget of such countries as Chad, Swaziland, Guam, Lesotho, Syria or Bermuda, or the budgets of Guernsey and Suriname taken together. And this despite the fact that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan has 85.6 thousand employees, and over 18 million people live in Syria …
It should be noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs also includes the penal system of Kazakhstan, which deals with the re-education of convicts. So, according to the budget plan for 2021-2023, for the program “Organization of the penitentiary system’s activities”, and specifically within the framework of the subprogram “Maintenance of convicted, suspected and accused persons”, costs are planned in the total amount of $ 214.9 million: in 2021 – $ 88.7 million, in 2022 – $ 73.8 million, in 2023 – $ 52.3 million
Considering that today there are about 30 thousand prisoners in Kazakhstan (93% of them are convicted of especially grave crimes), it is easy to calculate that the republican budget provides for $ 2956 per prisoner per year, or $ 246 per month, or $ 8,2 per day.
For comparison, in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, about $ 11.7 million is allocated per year for the maintenance of slightly more than six thousand prisoners. One prisoner spends about $ 350 per year, it’s about $ 30 per month. There is another interesting comparison: there are 82 colonies and 16 pre-trial detention centers in Kazakhstan today. In Kyrgyzstan in total, there are 27 institutions of the State Penitentiary Service.
It is not difficult to understand how large these sums are for Kazakhstan; it is enough to look at such basic economic values as the monthly calculation index (MCI) – $ 6.7. The minimum salary is $ 98. The subsistence level is $ 79.7. The minimum pension is $ 100.
Meanwhile, from next year in Kazakhstan, the cost of daily food for prisoners will be increased to $ 2.44. It turns out that about $ 73 (from the amount of $ 246) will be spent on food, and the remaining amount will be spent on everything else needed by a person in custody.
For comparison, in Uzbekistan, according to official data, there are 43 penitentiary institutions where there are 22.9 thousand people. $ 1.9 per day is allocated for food for one prisoner. In Kazakhstan, as of today, $ 1.46 is allocated for food for one prisoner.
It should be noted that according to the Council of Europe, on an average, $ 78 per day is spent per prisoner in the EU countries, that is, 9.5 times more than Kazakhstan spends on its prisoners. However, the Russia, where the prison population is 21 times more than in Kazakhstan (650 thousand prisoners in Russia to 30 thousand prisoners in Kazakhstan), spends much more on keeping people in custody: $ 7692 per year, $ 641 per month or $ 21 per day (per prisoner). Concerning this parameter, Kazakhstan is ahead of Georgia ($ 13.8), and Armenia ($ 13.5), and even Moldova ($ 9.4).
On the other hand, with the money allocated in Kazakhstan from the budget for the maintenance of prisoners, it would be possible to build 895.5 thousand square meters of housing (the cost of 1 square meter in Kazakhstan is $ 240). For comparison, we can give the following figure: in 2020-2021 only in the West Kazakhstan region, it is planned to build 500 thousand square meters of housing.
By the way, concerning construction. Last year, Kazakhstan adopted “The roadmap for the development of the penal system for 2019-2023”. According to this document, the country decided to carry out a complete modernization of all colonies. As noted in August 2019 by the Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan, Marat Akhmetzhanov, after the scandal because of torture in the colony in Zarechny, all correctional institutions of the republic were checked. As a result, it was revealed that not a single colony meets international standards.
“Until 2023, the roadmap provides for the construction of 12 single-cell blocks to keep 1,200 people, but this is only 5% of the total need. In this regard, recommendations were made to the government to continue the complete modernization of colonies throughout the country, having decided the issue of sufficient funding,” Akhmetzhanov said.
So, to put it mildly, this position of the Kazakh authorities is strange. If the colonies are overcrowded, then why do they close the existing penitentiary institutions? As ACCA has repeatedly reported, in 2017-2018, 7 colonies were liquidated in Kazakhstan. The authorities closed 4 correctional facilities in 2019. This year two more colonies were closed down – in Kostanay and East Kazakhstan regions.
It is clear that the modernization of colonies and pre-trial detention centers is a very profitable business for those interested persons, since in any such construction, millions can be stolen. Alas, we didn’t manage to find the roadmap. Apparently the State Penitentiary Service doesn’t want the public to know how much money they are asking for repairs, modernization of the colony, or for the construction of a new prison block.
However, 5-6 years ago, the Penitentiary System Committee started talking about the construction of private prisons in Kazakhstan. It was assumed that the first such establishment would appear in Karaganda. Then the approximate cost of such construction was $ 160 million. However, in 2017, the authorities announced that they had decided to abandon the idea of building private prisons. As the then Minister of Internal Affairs Kalmukhanbet Kasymov explained, the decision to refuse was justified by the fact that the construction of prisons, even with the involvement of private capital, is not a cheap pleasure.
“The Ministry of National Economy and the Center for Public-Private Partnership of Kazakhstan have developed and already approved by the government proposals for the reconstruction of existing residential buildings on the territory of correctional institutions, or the construction of new buildings in their place with single-cell content through alternative mechanisms of public-private partnership. The implementation of this proposal will require significantly less than 50% costs in comparison with the construction of new correctional facilities from scratch,” Kasymov noted then.
Therefore, based on the words of the former minister, it can be calculated that the modernization of the colony costs about $ 80 million. And there are 82 such institutions in the country, according to the Penitentiary System Committee’s data as of October 1, 2020. Now, just multiply their number by the cost of modernization.
In conclusion, we would like to note that against the background of the President’s speeches that the country is on the verge of difficult times caused by the pandemic and the economic crisis; against the background of budget cuts in many areas; against the background of a gradual increase in the retirement age, law enforcement officers and the Penitentiary System Committee are the least in need of money. And looking at the numerous projects of officials from the penal system, we can assume that the country will not soon experience the economic growth that the second President of Kazakhstan, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev, is dreaming of. After all, money is invested not in people and not in the development of production, but in incomprehensible projects of prison and law enforcement agencies.
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