In Kazakhstan, horse meat was offered as bribe to Director of Testing Center
Didar Smagulov, the Director of the National Testing Center under the Ministry of Education and Science, promises to pay $260 for each report of corruption when students pass the Unified National Test (UNT).
According to the head of the center, corruption allegations addressed to his subordinates are usually fake.
“In social networks people write that experts leaked tests, that there is a corruption. I want to officially refute this information. I am confident in the purity of my colleagues. We begin to sort out, and, as a rule, this information is either fake, or they are sold under the guise of new tests, which were used 2-3 years ago and have no power,” said Smagulov.
At the same time, he emphasized that his confidence in his own personnel is so high that he is ready to pay a reward for every message about corruption in his department from his own pocket.
Recall that today in Kazakhstan there is an incentive practice, according to which the Anti-Corruption Agency pays a bonus of up to 10% of the amount of a bribe to conscious citizens reporting bribery after a corrupt official is convicted.
“We are ready to offer a reward for information about corruption in the amount of 100 000 tenge ($260). I am ready to pay from my personal funds. I will not wait for a court decision. I have a salary of 500 000 tenge ($1308). If in a month one person informs me about the facts of corruption, I won’t get poor from that!”, Smagulov emphasized.
He said that he was also offered bribes: money in the amount of $1000 for every point for the test results, and even horse meat.
Meanwhile, according to the Anti-Corruption Agency, in 2019, 164 corruption offenses were committed in the field of education. The amount of damage was about $1.5 million.
Recall, the National Testing Center, whose director so zealously took up cleaning ranks from corrupt officials, more than once was involved in corruption cases.
For example, as ACCA previously reported, the previous head of the National Testing Center was sentenced to various terms for corruption crimes. So, the former director of the Center, Ramazan Alimkulov, was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for a bribe of $13 000. And his deputy Darkhan Zhaksybekov received 7 years in prison for a bribe in the form of Toyota Camry car worth about $25 000.
