In Kazakhstan, about a thousand police officers were convicted of bribes during three years

Minister of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, Erlan Turgumbaev, complained to the senators about the low salary of the police officers. According to him, an ordinary district inspector today receives $442, and his colleague, who teaches at the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs even less – $346. For comparison, teachers in other non-police universities receive 2-3 times more.

“In our opinion, it is necessary to develop common approaches to pay salary in all law enforcement agencies. The level of salary should be such as to refuse additional benefits and temptations,” Turgumbaev said at a government hour in the Senate of the Parliament of Kazakhstan.

Apparently, low salaries are the root of corruption problems in the ranks of law enforcement agencies. So, according to Senator Vladimir Volkov, over the past three years, law enforcement officers have committed 1051 corruption offenses in Kazakhstan, 963 police officers have been prosecuted for corruption, and 526 employees of internal affairs bodies have been held administratively liable.

According to the Senator, the leader in the number of convicted for corruption in 2019 was the police department of the city of Nur-Sultan (42 convicts). In second place is the police department of Almaty (26 employees). In third and fourth places are Chimkent and Zhambyl oblast (23 and 19 employees, respectively).

Recall, according to the results of a study conducted by the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Ministry of the Interior is the most corrupt state structure in Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, according to Interior Minister, Erlan Turgumbaev, the department is striving to clear its ranks of criminals and bribe-takers. Today in the ranks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs there are 149 000 employees. In 2019, the crime rate among employees of internal affairs bodies decreased by 29%, including corruption by 34%.

“That is, we ourselves carry out cleaning in our departments,” Turgumbaev emphasized. “First of all, this is a replacement of managers whose subordinates have committed crimes. And secondly, we identify werewolves in uniform that have been drawn into the drug business and other criminal schemes. I think that during 3 years we will minimize the level of corruption in the authorities’ structures. Of course, we are criticized because we are the largest law enforcement agency in the country!”

Turgumbaev also said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is closely monitoring citizens’ criticism of law enforcement agencies. According to him, the department uses a special program.

“An automated monitoring system for the information space “Aimas” has been introduced, by which 8.5 million publications have been processed. In real time, we monitor the assessment of our work. About 85 000 positive and over 27 000 critical messages concerning the activities of the police were deleted. Taking into account the criticism that we have, we, of course, are making adjustments to our work,” the Minister explained.

According to him, often the Interior Ministry is criticized for the access of prisoners to medical services. This area is currently supervised by the Penal System Committee. The Minister noted that for the past year, his department has been trying to persuade the Ministry of Health to take this area for itself, but so far in vain.

“The Ministry of Health does not want to go into the system of the Criminal Executive Committee,” he explained. “The police would be fine if the Criminal Executive Committee took the Ministry of Health under itself. We would reduce mortality, probably reduce such a frequent incidence in our facilities.”