Smailov criticized former subordinates for sluggishness

The head of the Supreme Chamber of Audit, ex-Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov criticized his former subordinates for low budget discipline and delaying the construction of important facilities, Liter.kz reports.

At the plenary meeting of the Mazhilis, held on June 5, Smailov said that based on the results of an audit in the regions of Abay, Zhetysu, Ulytau and Almaty, auditors noted non-compliance with construction deadlines for 27% of budget investment projects.

“The implementation of individual projects lasts up to 10 years. For untimely completed projects, a total increase in cost of more than 60% has already been noted. For the rest, it remains to be seen what the consequences of the regions’ sluggishness in implementing important engineering and infrastructure projects will be. In these four regions, payment was made for the unfulfilled amount of work amounting to almost 3.4 billion tenge,” said Alikhan Smailov.

Also, according to him, there are cases of misuse of objects that are very important and in demand in the regions. Thus, in Semey, the “Center” boiler house built in 2023 for the amount of 1.7 billion tenge is not used. Due to the freeze in the city of Zhezkazgan, a residential building built in 2023 worth almost 600 million tenge is still not occupied.

Alikhan Smailov also criticized the quasi-public sector. In 2023 alone, national companies received funding of almost 1.2 trillion tenge from the republican budget. At the same time, their unused balance at the end of the year increased by more than 2.5 times compared to the previous period.

“This is a glaring fact in the context of insufficient funds in the budget to solve many other important problems. It’s time for the quasi-public sector to be held accountable for lack of development and low performance in budget planning and its execution on an equal basis with government bodies – on the platform of Parliament. There should be a mechanism for returning unused funds previously allocated to increase the authorized capital,” he said.

He also added that the practice of accumulating unused funds in control accounts should be stopped. Money, according to him, should work for the economy and for the benefit of Kazakhstanis.