395.4 million tenge, a lost court case, an auditor who refused to vouch for 80% of assets – and complete silence in response to the direct question "why". A week ago, FBRK analysed the financial statements of Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport JSC for 2024. We sent official requests to the airport itself and to the Internal State Audit Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which had identified the violations. And while the company itself chose to shield itself from questions with formal excuses, the committee explained in detail what violations lay hidden behind the figures in the statements and what exactly led to the court dispute.
WHAT HAPPENED
Not long ago, the FBRK editorial team published an analytical piece examining the financial statements of Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport JSC for 2024. The statements recorded that the auditor refused to vouch for 80% of the company's assets, the airport lost a court case against the state for 395.4 million tenge, and the difference between the nominal amount of the debt and its present value due to the payment plan was recorded as income of approximately 64.9 million tenge. At the same time, the statements nowhere explained what exactly the violations were that left the airport owing the budget almost 400 million.
To find out, our editorial team sent official requests to the airport itself and to the Internal State Audit Committee of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which had identified the violations.
WHAT THE COMPANY SAID
The airport refused to respond to the FBRK request in its entirety – to every question without exception. The formal reason given: the request, signed by the publication's editor-in-chief, allegedly did not have attached a document confirming the signatory's authority as of the current date.
Moreover, FBRK attached the same package of documents that our editorial team usually uses when contacting akimats, ministries, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Presidential Administration, and which has never raised any questions from those bodies.
Especially since the questions themselves did not concern any closed information. We requested details from the airport's already published financial statements and the circumstances of the court proceedings in which the company itself was a party.
It appears the airport was not looking for a way to answer, but for a reason not to answer. And judging by what is contained in the response from the Internal State Audit Committee, the airport indeed had reasons for such caution. The committee, incidentally, in response to the same request with the same set of documents, somehow saw no obstacles and answered every question in detail.
The FBRK editorial team has filed an official complaint about the airport's refusal to respond on the merits.
WHAT THE COMMITTEE REPLIED
From 12 January to 18 April 2023, the committee conducted a state audit at the airport regarding compliance in the use of state and quasi-state sector assets and recorded 27 items of violations. The key financial violation of 395.4 million tenge, as the committee reported, was that the airport did not initiate an adjustment to the feasibility study (FS) for the investment project "Infrastructure Modernisation", although it was obliged to do so under the Budget Code and an order of the Minister of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Behind the dry wording "violation of the Budget Code" lies a quite specific story revealed by the court materials. The approved FS envisaged the purchase of four compact sweeping-blowing machines at 234 million tenge each (a total of 936 million tenge). The airport, bypassing the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development and the FS itself, independently announced procurement of the same four machines at a price of 340.6 million tenge per unit – almost 46% more expensive than the approved estimate. On 13 September 2021, a contract worth 1.36 billion tenge was concluded with Eurasia ST LLP.
But the most interesting part is not even the budget arithmetic, but the customs declarations. According to the documents, for two of the four machines delivered, the customs value was 153.9 million and 156.4 million tenge respectively. In other words, for a unit of equipment that, according to customs documents, cost around 154–156 million tenge, the airport paid the supplier 340.6 million – more than twice as much. The court directly stated that the machines were "acquired by the Company at an excessively inflated cost, as confirmed by the goods declaration".
Moreover, with the allocated 2.89 billion tenge, the airport purchased only two components of the project out of three – the jet bridge and the sweeping machines. The third, emergency rescue equipment worth 330.7 million tenge, was never purchased, although the funds for it had been budgeted and allocated.
The committee's order required not only the return of money, but also "consideration of disciplinary liability for officials who allowed the identified violations". In response to FBRK's direct question as to who specifically was held accountable, the committee replied that bringing those responsible to disciplinary liability "proved impossible due to the termination of employment relationships". In other words, by the time the order took effect, everyone who would have had to answer for the multi-million overpayment had already left the company.
In our previous piece, we noted that the airport stretched the repayment of the debt (395.4 million tenge) over three payments until 31 March 2027, and the difference between the nominal amount of the debt and its present value (around 64.9 million tenge) was recorded in the statements as income. We asked the committee whether it was aware of the discount rate applied by the company (15.25%) and of the income of 64.9 million tenge. The answer turned out to be purely technical: issues of discounting and the reflection of amounts in the statements, as stated in the response, do not relate to the subject of fulfilling the order, since "the fulfilment of the obligation is confirmed by actual payments to the budget". In other words, the committee is only interested in whether the money reached the budget, not in how the airport recorded the debt to the state in its own statements. At the same time, the committee reported that as of the date of the response, the airport had already paid two instalments out of three.
THE COURT SAGA AND THE PROSECUTOR'S TRAIL
The airport challenged the order at every level and lost at each one. The court of first instance dismissed the claim on 27 February 2024; the appellate panel of the Astana city court also upheld the decision without changes on 30 May 2024; and the cassation panel of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan finally refused the airport on 10 January 2025.
Separately, the committee also confirmed what we had found in the case materials. Simultaneously with the ruling on the merits of the dispute, the court of first instance issued a special ruling and forwarded the circumstances of the case to the Chief Transport Prosecutor and the head of the Astana city department of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Countering Corruption – "for the taking of appropriate measures", noting the need to check whether the airport's actions contained signs of a criminal offence. Let us emphasise that a special ruling is not a verdict or an accusation, but a signal to supervisory bodies for verification. It does not establish guilt in the criminal sense. But the fact that it was the committee, and not the airport itself – the subject of the check – that disclosed this signal, speaks for itself.
WHAT ELSE THE AUDIT FOUND
Of the 12 items of procedural violations totalling 292.5 million tenge, the court agreed with the committee on only five.
First – the airport paid part of salaries in cash through the cash desk for years instead of transferring to employees' card accounts, although it was obliged to switch to cashless payments back in 2004. Through the cash desk went 64.4 million tenge, of which 63.3 million was salary itself, the rest bonuses and travel allowances. Second – orders regarding leave, return from parental leave and business trips were signed by the director of the legal department instead of the first executive, although such orders must only be signed by the first executive or their official deputy: under such orders were 29.8 million tenge of payments whose legality the court called into question. Additionally, the airport paid 42.5 million tenge for services that were not included at all in the company's annual state procurement plan, meaning they were purchased circumventing the mandatory planning procedure. Employees servicing the jet bridges and ground handling equipment were paid 80% instead of the 50% supplementary payment required by internal rules: the overpayment from this difference amounted to 1.98 million tenge. The remaining seven items out of the twelve – mostly objections to how the airport admitted suppliers to tenders – the court found unfounded and dismissed against the company. So not everything the committee alleged was confirmed, but what was confirmed paints a methodical picture of careless handling of budget money.
In the end, the airport's attempt to hide behind a formal excuse backfired. They did not want to answer – the audit answered. But the main thing is that now, behind the audit's wording and the financial statements, the specific circumstances and decisions that led to these violations are visible.
