From 2023, Akimats were deprived of state orders for school construction. In September 2022, the government decided and appointed Samruk-Kazyna Construction JSC as the sole operator for the implementation of the National Project ‘Comfortable School’. Experts immediately questioned the initiative. And they were right.

Recently, at a meeting in Amanat Party, the Kazakhstan Furniture Guild stated that the technical documentation for the national project was composed in such a way that only one Kazakhstani supplier falls under certain requirements for school furniture.

Time to Discuss Lobbyism?

According to the guild representative, Igor Protsenko, the national project operator took a long time to prepare the technical specifications, which were handed over to design organizations only at the end of September.

Due to a strange coincidence, some furniture models in the documentation, specifically student desks and chairs, completely match the range of products of one enterprise from Pavlodar. It is unclear whether the interests and technological capabilities of other manufacturers were taken into account, and if so, why is there no reference to alternative furniture models? One would not like to use the words ‘lobbying’ and ‘favoritism’, however, by significantly narrowing down the circle of potential suppliers, Samruk-Kazyna Construction jeopardizes the implementation of the ‘Comfortable School’ national project,» the media quotes Igor Protsenko’s statement.

The Furniture Guild also mentioned that the volume of state orders for furniture for new schools is three times higher than the capacities of all Kazakhstani furniture manufacturers combined. However, at Samruk-Kazyna Construction, they are confident that the business can handle the set tasks. It looks roughly the same as if a doctor in intensive care demanded a comatose patient to «get up and walk», motivating with «you can do it!»

Well, the «Comfortable School» project is designed for 3 years, so by 2024, the real state of affairs will start to surface. Although from the very beginning, it was clear that transferring a project worth 2.6 trillion tenge of the National Fund’s resources to an organization, not the most impeccable in terms of reputation, even with a 100% state participation, carries risks.

We Warned You

Our portal, in the article titled ‘Corruption in School Construction: A Temptation for «Samruk-Kazyna»‘, written on December 28, 2022, stated that even at the stage of merely deciding on transferring the ‘comfortable schools’ to ‘Samruk’, everything looked like a questionable venture.

«The draft of the instruction has not been approved yet, but I already see that transferring school construction to the hands of ‘Samruk’ is a step back in terms of transparency and corruption risks. Firstly, purchases will be made on the Samruk-Kazyna Construction website, outside the publicly accessible state procurement portal, and applications are accepted in paper form. Secondly, in 2020, experts from the World Bank had many comments specifically regarding the transparency of purchases by the ‘Samruk-Kazyna’ fund. Thirdly, how would ‘Samruk’s’ subsidiary know the specifics of regions when forming a construction plan? Fourthly, oversight of the akimats could always be strengthened by the state audit committee of the Ministry of Finance or the Supreme Audit Chamber. But who will oversee the efficiency of expenditures in Samruk-Kazyna Construction? Are there resources for this?” — Nurgali Rahmanov, head of the public organization ‘Digital Society’, was pondering these questions.

He noted that all of ‘Samruk-Kazyna’s’ procurement decisions do not undergo examination in the Ministry of Justice for compliance with legislation due to the fund’s special status. Centralizing procurement for school construction will lead solely to the concentration of three or four of the country’s largest builders near the decision-making center, and the regional construction business will not overcome this barrier at all. Where there is no competition, prices always rise. When the akimats acted as clients in school construction, elements of corruption and artificial price inflation for work, goods, and services were present, but the overall amount of money was scattered across the regions, making it harder to embezzle or spend inefficiently,» Nurgali Rahmanov commented.

Where was he wrong? In that the decision-making center approves the specifications opaquely and bypassing the national procurement system?

Throughout 2023, messages came from various regions stating that they had not yet started school construction in practice, but are only developing project-budget documentation. This essentially raises questions for the national project operator — are you sure you will construct all these 500 plus schools by the end of 2025?