In Shymkent, a regional audit commission identified inefficient use of almost 164 billion tenge of budget funds. Meanwhile, a previously conducted audit had found only 122.6 billion tenge.
The overall effectiveness of the regional audit commissions received low ratings. According to the press service of the Supreme Audit Chamber (SAC), the activities of only 11 out of 20 commissions (55%) were assessed as effective. The rest received a rating of 'satisfactory'.
"One of the main parameters is the volume of changes made to the list of state audit objects. Replacement within 10% is assessed positively, but anything over 10% is considered a violation, as this entails significant corruption risks. In 2023, the audit commissions of the East Kazakhstan Region, North Kazakhstan Region, and Kostanay Region updated their lists by 10 to 30% over the year. The largest deviation was recorded in the Turkestan Region – a full 38%," the statement said.
At the same time, Chairman of the SAC Alikhan Smailov stressed the importance of improving the quality of desk audits by the internal state audit committee.
Over the past year, notifications from the state body have increasingly been issued unreasonably, which, according to him, creates an unnecessary burden on audit subjects and employees themselves.
"A situation where 42% of objections are upheld in favour of the audit subjects means that desk audit is working poorly. This should not happen at all. The committee needs to address these errors: correct risk profiles and settings in the desk audit so that subjects do not receive notifications that are later not upheld. This is a waste of time and resources, and a burden on those being audited," said Alikhan Smailov.