Recently, the editorial board of FBRK reported that the akimat of the Altai district in the East Kazakhstan region concluded two contracts from a single source “to ensure the stable and uninterrupted operation of the equipment of the State Public Enterprise ‘Teplovodotsentral of Serebryansk and Novaya Bukhtarma’” totalling around 50 million tenge.
The most curious aspect of this story is the very fact of concluding the contracts bypassing competitive procedures, which the akimat justified by stating that the services specified in the contracts needed to be carried out urgently to avoid an emergency.
The editorial board of FBRK sent an official request to the akimat of the Altai district to find out why the contracts were concluded from a single source, why the service provider chosen was a subsidiary organisation of the akimat, and why repairs to the equipment at the heat and water supply enterprise were undertaken at the very last moment.
In response to our request, the district akimat stated that the contracts were concluded to ensure an uninterrupted water supply in the cities of Serebryansk, Novaya Bukhtarma, Altai, and the village of Zubovsk.
Furthermore, the akimat shared information that the State Public Enterprise ‘Teplovodotsentral of Altai’ has a debt amounting to 63.16 million tenge owed to ‘Shygysenergotrade’ LLP, whose owner is ‘Samruk-Energy’ JSC.
It is reported that the debt is due to an increase in electricity tariffs. As a result of these unforeseen costs, the State Public Enterprise ‘Teplovodotsentral of Altai’ incurred a debt to the electricity supplier, ‘Shygysenergotrade’ LLP.
In August 2024, the State Public Enterprise ‘Teplovodotsentral of Altai’ partially repaid the debt, paying 5.2 million tenge from its own funds under the agreement with ‘Shygysenergotrade’ LLP.
According to the akimat’s response, a similar situation is unfolding at the State Public Enterprise ‘Teplovodotsentral of Serebryansk and Novaya Bukhtarma’.
An interesting detail: the funds received by the participant in two contracts — the State Public Enterprise ‘Teplovodotsentral of Serebryansk and Novaya Bukhtarma’ — for the provision of services, which, as a reminder, amount to around 50 million tenge, “were used to repay the debt to ‘Shygysenergotrade’ LLP”.
So it turns out that the akimat’s subsidiary organisation is repairing its own equipment, and the money received for the repairs is being spent on repaying the debt to ‘Shygysenergotrade’ LLP.
An answer to the question of why the repair of worn-out equipment was not carried out in a timely manner was never provided to us.
We can assume, however, that this circumstance is explained by the company’s financial problems, which likely forced the akimat to resort to such an unusual solution for debt repayment.
Nevertheless, the editorial board of FBRK intends to find out what degree of wear and tear the water supply system had at the time the contracts were concluded and why the repairs were not carried out earlier.
As a reminder, the editorial board of FBRK recently discovered that one of the schools in the East Kazakhstan region concluded a public procurement contract for staff medical examination services, publishing in the technical specifications the personal data of the institution’s employees.
The Department of Internal State Audit for the East Kazakhstan region, which we contacted to find out what conclusion the department would reach on this matter, saw no violations in the public procurement.