In the East Kazakhstan Region, the former head of the ecology department, Mamai Butabayev, has been convicted in a case involving the receipt of a bribe from the deputy director of a road construction company, Kanat Dyrynbayev, during the reconstruction of a section of a national highway.
According to ORDA, Butabayev was caught red-handed in July last year. At the time, he received 8.5 million tenge from Dyrynbayev as an advance payment on a previously agreed sum of 130 million tenge.
Also implicated in the case was the owner of Incom-Shygys LLP, Marat Akylgazin. The investigation established that he had attempted to launder part of the bribe by channelling the funds through his company.
It has become known that Mamai Butabayev headed the East Kazakhstan Region’s ecology department for only six months. Prior to that, he worked in the Abai Region and was appointed following the arrest of his predecessor, Daniyar Aliyev, who was convicted of accepting a bribe.
A month before Aliyev’s arrest, the deputy head of the department, Rauan Turarov, was detained. He received seven years in prison for a corruption offence involving dealings with a gold mining company.
Thus, over two years, three heads of the East Kazakhstan ecology department in a row have become defendants in criminal bribery cases.
Ultimately, by court decision, Mamai Butabayev and Kanat Dyrynbayev were sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison, and Marat Akylgazin to six years in prison.