A court in Aktobe has handed down a verdict in the case of multi-billion tenge embezzlement at the company "Tu-Kha", which is part of the structure of the Chinese corporation CNPC. Two female employees of the enterprise — the deputy director and the chief accountant — were found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering of 6 billion tenge.
According to ORDA, during the trial the defendants admitted that for 16 years — from 2004 to 2020 — on the instructions of the company's management, they cashed out funds and spent them on unofficial payments to various state bodies in the region.
It is reported that monthly, part of the funds was directed to the akimat and the labour department of the Aktobe region in the form of a "fee" for the unhindered recruitment of foreign workers. According to preliminary data, over $2.4 million (1.2 billion tenge) was transferred to the migration service for permits for the entry of employees from China.
Furthermore, according to the convicted individuals, the ecology department received around $20,000 (10.7 million tenge) annually for approving chemical reagents, and the customs authorities received approximately $500,000 (269.7 million tenge) for undervaluing duties. In 2016, "Tu-Kha" also paid to obtain a license for an activity to which it formally had no access.
In the end, the court found the accountant and the deputy general director guilty and sentenced them to eight years in prison each.
For his part, oil and gas industry analyst Nurlan Zhumagulov claims that the company systematically used shell companies to cash out money through a "simplified tax system" with a minimum tax of 3%.
"I rechecked the figures — they add up. If over 14 years (from 2006 to 2020) corporate income tax payments totalled only 174 million tenge, then over the last four years it was 700 million tenge. Do you see the difference? On average, the firm received orders from the parent company 'SNPS-Aktobemunaigaz' worth 2 billion tenge annually and continues to receive them. And there are many such affiliated suppliers," the expert noted.
According to Zhumagulov, part of the funds was also spent on the personal expenses of Chinese employees: flights, gifts for officials, payment for holidays, premium phones and accessories.
The company "Tu-Kha" is a subsidiary of SNPS-Aktobemunaigaz LLP, controlled by the Chinese state corporation CNPC — one of the largest oil and gas structures in the world.
Earlier, "SNPS-Aktobemunaigaz" had already featured in materials from the antitrust authority: the company was accused of abusing its dominant market position. According to experts, the enterprise's financial statements repeatedly diverged from the data submitted to the Ministry of Energy.
"The most interesting thing is that SNPS-AMG's reports on oil operations (procurement) submitted to the Ministry of Energy never match the company's financial statement data. In the age of digitalisation, the Ministry of Energy can easily cross-check the figures from SNPS-AMG's financial statements and actual reports, because this affects penalty sanctions for failure to fulfil obligations regarding Kazakh content," Zhumagulov emphasised.