The Minister of Industry and Construction Kanat Sharlapayev commented on the situation in the village of Maraldy in the Kurchum District of the East Kazakhstan Region.
According to informburo.kz, construction of an industrial-scale gold mining plant is ongoing there. Local residents have repeatedly complained that the factory is being built next to a river. In their opinion, this could affect the health of the villagers and the condition of the nature reserve.
Sharlapayev, for his part, believes that certain interested parties are hindering the investor under the pretext of environmental concerns, thereby obstructing the development of the village.
"An investor comes, invests money, and builds a factory. A workplace was prepared for every resident of Maraldy. But there is always a handful of people, sometimes not even living in the village, who dictate how a foreign investor should operate. In this regard, I believe the state should work on attracting foreign investors," the official stated.
Recall that in August last year, local residents in the village of Maraldy actively opposed the construction of the factory and the exploitation of the gold ore quarry.
Despite the obvious prospects for the population, the villagers were categorically opposed to new industrial facilities appearing in their settlement. We then put forward the assumption that people could have been manipulated (as is often the case in various countries) by those pursuing personal interests.
In publications about the events in Maraldy, we suggested that the village residents had been turned against the upcoming construction. Even at the first hearings, incitement of the population by certain capital-based activists was observed, and one speaker at the hearings even demanded that each person be given 20 million tenge for the construction. We published a detailed analysis of who is calling on the villagers to engage in mass unrest in Maraldy.