Kazakhstan: judges of the capital will go by taxi at the expense of the budget
An interesting lot has appeared on the public procurement portal in Kazakhstan – the purchase of taxi services for the capital’s judges. The customer is the state institution “Administrator of courts for the city of Nur-Sultan of the Department for support of courts at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.
First of all, the lot attracts attention by the amount that the Administrator of courts is ready to allocate to judges for taxi services – $ 61,796.
This money, as stated in the technical specification of the announcement, will go to pay for the travel of the chairmen of the courts of the city of Nur-Sultan, the head of the Administrator of courts and couriers of the courts for a period until December 31, 2021. On weekends and holidays, the organizer of the purchase specifies, the service is not required.
Judging by the technical specification, not every taxi company will be able to offer its services to capital’s judges. The requirements for potential suppliers are quite strict: they must have a mobile app for calling a taxi, in which it’s obligatory to have a “personal account”, provide details of trips indicating the route, distance and travel time for each application separately, provide a free call to call a taxi; inside of cars must have properly working heating and air conditioning systems; cars must be clean, both outside and inside; drivers must be dressed in clean uniforms; car must be delivered to the customer within 15 minutes from the moment of the call, and upon prior request – at exactly specified time. A preliminary application can be sent one hour before the trip. There should be no unpleasant odors in the car, drivers should be polite, helpful and careful in driving. The taxi company must also have a medical staff providing obligatory examination of drivers before leaving. In addition, the taxi company should be able to call 19 taxis at the same time!
As for the payment for services, the boarding of passengers from the judiciary office (including the first 5 kilometers of the trip) will be paid in the amount of $ 2.3. Then, each kilometer of the trip will be paid in the amount of $ 0.23, and each minute of the trip – in the amount of $ 0.08.
However, it’s not so simple too. According to the same technical specification, the customer will pay for the services not immediately, but at the end of each month. Moreover, he will have the right to impose fines for violation of certain clauses of the agreement.
For example, for not providing a car for an hour, the fine will be $ 14.3; for being late (more than 15 minutes), only half of the cost of the trip will be paid. For a dirty inside of car, unpleasant odors, untidy look of the driver, lack of courtesy, careless driving, smoking and the presence of a stranger in the car, the fine for each of these violations will also amount to $ 14.3.
And if we are talking about the transportation, first of all, of the chairmen of the courts (the couriers don’t need cars of the “comfort” class), it is unlikely that any driver will dare to challenge the fine imposed for him. It will be more expensive.
However, the main thing is quite different. As the press secretary of the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan Aidos Saduakasov said at the end of last year, in the regional courts (courts of the cities of republican significance – Nur-Sultan, Almaty and Chimkent are equated to them) judges receive $ 1500-1700, and the salaries in the Supreme Court are $ 1900-2000.
According to the Committee on Legal Statistics and Special Records of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Kazakhstan, the cars, that are on the balance sheet of the Administration of courts of Nur-Sultan, have a rather impressive amount of fines – more than $ 5,300. Moreover, many fines have been hanging unpaid since 2018, and the last one was just recently – on March 15. The list of worst offenders includes cars with license plates 010CS01, 078CS01, 017CS01, 028CS01 and others …
