In the village of Ekpyndy, Almaty Region, residents have been waiting since the start of the year for the completion of repairs to Secondary School No. 2. Initially, locals were promised the school would be repaired by January of this year, then by March, but this did not happen.
According to informburo.kz, repair work at the school began back in the summer of last year. It catered to 1,300 students from the settlement. In the meantime, they have to study at another institution, which is overloaded by 3 to 4 times.
"My child is in the eighth grade. Lessons only start at 15.45. There are only four lessons. The children return home at 19.00-20.00. We also have children who go to school in the dacha area. It's beyond Chemolgan station. There is a level crossing there. Constant traffic jams. The kids stand and wait in these traffic jams just to get home. They only arrive at 10 at night," complained a local resident.
Meanwhile, the villagers report that they haven't seen any builders on site since the beginning of the year.
"The last payment was in September 2023. For the past six months, we haven't received any funding. We have a contract stating we should finish in 2025," said site manager Dinislam Nurdaulet.
According to the contractors, they have only managed to complete 50% of the major repairs. After funding was halted, they invested 109 million tenge of their own money. There is no money left, and new funding is apparently not expected any time soon.
The district administration (akimat), for its part, stated that at the last winter session of the maslikhat (local council), funds for completing the school repairs were not allocated due to a lack of resources.