The Prosecutor's Office of Pavlodar Region has uncovered cases of embezzlement of budget funds allocated for the implementation of the national project "Strong Regions - Drivers of the Country's Development".
According to the press service of the department, the project involves relocating residents from southern regions to sparsely populated northern territories.
"A whole scheme for appropriating financial support funds for relocators has been created, including by artificially inflating the cost of houses to 8 million tenge in order to receive half of the expenses (50% of the cost of buying a house is reimbursed, but no more than 4.2 million tenge). In fact, abandoned houses were purchased from 500 thousand tenge," - the prosecutor's office stated.
It is reported that as a result, the relocation was carried out only on paper, while in reality, due to population outflow, 59 settlements in the region were abolished. In just 6 districts, damage amounting to 600 million tenge was established, meaning that on average 100 million was stolen in each district.
"The prosecutor's office has registered the inspection materials in the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations under Part 4 of Article 190 of the Criminal Code; a special prosecutor is conducting the investigation," the statement says.