Kazakhstan: Anti-Corruption Agency purchased the building 3 times more expensive than its cost

Almost every day, the Anti-Corruption Agency reports on new facts of incriminating officials in crimes. However, journalists became aware of the involvement of the anti-corrupters themselves in a major corruption deal.

Law enforcement officials are most affected by corruption. For example, on May 28, anti-corruption fighters detained S. Ospanov (deputy chief of the police department of Auezov district) and M. Myrzagasymov (officer of the same police department) for receiving a bribe of $1.1 thousand.

On the same day, the Anti-Corruption Service of Aktobe announced the start of a pre-trial investigation against a company inspector of the patrol police of the local police department of Aktobe region on taking of a bribe for illegal actions, which resulted in a non-compilation of an administrative offense report on the fact of a detour of a quarantine checkpoint at the entrance in Aktobe and not putting the car into the penalty parking.

At the same time, it became known about the arrest of the head of the apparatus of Aktobe city hall on suspicion of embezzlement of budget funds in a particularly large amount of $23 thousand by a group of persons by prior conspiracy with other employees of the apparatus and individual entrepreneurs from October 2019 to March 2020, by drawing up fictitious public procurement contracts.

Fighters against corruption from the city of Chimkent reported a pre-trial investigation against the senior investigative officer of the department of economic investigations in the city of Chimkent, who is suspected of receiving a bribe in the amount of $465 from an individual entrepreneur for not prosecuting for the use and sale of knowingly fake excise stamps.

On that day in Almaty, there was a court hearing on the case of Kh. Petraliev (the head of Almaty Inspectorate of Transport Control of the Transport Committee under the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development). He received a bribe in the amount of $760 from a representative of a private company for an unchecked movement of 10 trucks ($76 for each truck) in the city of Almaty during a state of emergency. According to the verdict of the District court of Auezov, Mr. Petraliev was sentenced to a fine of $23 thousand with life deprivation of the right to occupy positions in the public service.

Meanwhile, in the East Kazakhstan region, the current and former deputy chairman of the Committee for sports and physical education under the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Kazakhstan were arrested for a period of two months. The reason is that they are suspected of embezzlement of budget funds in the amount of $883.7 thousand during the construction of the educational building for the Republican Specialized Boarding School-College of Olympic Reserve in the city of Ridder by illegally transferring money to the contractor’s account without actually performing the work.

On May 28, the information appeared on website of the Anti-Corruption Department about incriminating the mayor of Zhambyl rural district of Turkestan region in receiving a bribe of $930 for a positive decision to issue a land plot.

So, the Anti-Corruption Service of Kazakhstan cleans the ranks of officials and law enforcement agencies from corruption weeds. At the same time, anti-corruption officials don’t notice what is happening in their own ranks.

On May 28, the Kazakh newspaper “Vremya” [“Time”] wrote a curious story about how the city hall of Nur-Sultan purchased a building worth $7.3 million for the Anti-Corruption Agency.

It is noteworthy that the company “Mabex Trade” LTD built this building in 2019. Moreover, it was a commercial and office building, the construction estimate of which amounted to $2.2 million. And then the company took part in a competition for the construction of a building for the Anti-Corruption Agency. The city hall went to meet it, since the building was fully suited to the requirements. Curiously enough, in the commercial and office building, there was even a call center with armored glass, an entrance turnstile, an early detection device for weapons, explosive, radioactive, and hazardous chemicals; an armory room that fully complies with the government’s decree “On measures to implement the law of the Republic of Kazakhstan”, “On state control over the circulation of certain types of weapons”, where even the words “Aim weapons here” are written in bilingual on the bullet catcher; room for carrying out procedural actions – a separate room with a barred window, tinted glass, video cameras, a work desk with an alarm button in the form of a foot pedal for calling a detail and others; a viewing room located next to the room for carrying out procedural actions, separated from it by laminated glass with a thickness of at least 12-16 mm, working on the principle of a Gesell mirror, which allows observing the performance of procedural actions. In addition, the weapons room, as the publication reports, was equipped with a well. This is a special hole designed in case if suddenly the building will be attacked or at least there will be such a threat.

“Then the orderly officer will have to throw the keys from the weapon room in the well. The well itself is a steel pipe with a diameter of 80-120 mm with two elbows at an angle of 135 degrees, a height of 1,500 mm and with an open bottom. So, the keys thrown out by the duty officer in an extreme situation will fall where they should, and the attackers will not get them. And it’s quite logical that this was also provided for during the construction of a commercial and office building!

“The competent authorities should check such tenders for legality, so that all sorts of bad thoughts about kickbacks don’t arise in society. But who will check it, if the Anti-Corruption Service has already entered the building, that was bought at an obscure price?” the newspaper writes.