In 2024, the Anti-Corruption Agency of Kazakhstan identified around 60 violations in the field of sports, causing budget damage totalling 1.3 billion tenge.
According to the Agency, the department completed a pre-trial investigation into the former director of the state enterprise "Sports Development Directorate", his deputy, and other implicated individuals. They are suspected of embezzling budget funds under the "Artsport" programme.
"Alongside this, additional instances of misappropriation of budget money allocated for the purchase of equipment for athletes at the '2023 Asian Games', sports services, sports inventory, and travel expenses have been established", the statement reads.
The total amount of damage in these cases amounted to 746 million tenge.
At the same time, the Agency completed another investigation into the head of the Department of Physical Culture and Sports of the Atyrau region.
He is suspected of receiving a bribe of 1.7 million tenge from a coach of the subordinate Olympic Reserve Training Centre for allocating funds for athletes to travel to training camps. Law enforcement also established his involvement in other crimes that caused major damage to the state.
Furthermore, in the East Kazakhstan region, an employee of the regional sports department and the management of a subordinate organisation were exposed for embezzling 80 million tenge allocated for fictitious training camps.
Recall that we have previously written about the Artsport programme and related violations. For example, in Shymkent, violations totalling over 56 million tenge were identified under the Artsport programme.
At the end of 2022, the Prosecutor General's Office reported the embezzlement of funds in several regions totalling 1.1 billion tenge. It also became known that in six regions of Kazakhstan, under the Artsport programme, children were trained by former pimps and sex workers.
Incidentally, funds for the Artsport programme this year were allocated only in 5 regions: in Pavlodar, Turkestan (2.1 billion), Karaganda (2.2 billion) and Mangystau regions (1.3 billion), as well as in the Abai region (1.2 billion).