The editorial team of FBRK has obtained a draft public-private partnership (PPP) agreement for the implementation of an intelligent control system on highways (ICS). The budgetary effectiveness of the joint project by Freedom Telecom and Sergek Group over 10 years is expected to be 2.855 trillion tenge. For now, let's take it step by step.
It recently became known that the founder and majority owner of the financial and investment group Freedom Holding Corp. (FRHC), Timur Turlov, may join the shareholders of the group of companies Sergek Group.
Back in December 2022, Freedom announced plans to become a shareholder of Sergek Group with a 35% stake. However, the deal remains incomplete to this day.
According to Mr Turlov, the investment in Sergek Group will allow Freedom to expand its interaction with the Kazakh IT sector.
Incidentally, work on expanding Freedom's sphere of activity began this year.
The intelligent control system (ICS) project, jointly developed by Freedom Telecom and Sergek Group, involves a system capable of providing necessary data to various government bodies around the clock.
At the same time, the main function of the ICS is to monitor cargo transport across the entire country, as well as to control the weight of freight vehicles.
The signing of the PPP agreement for the implementation of this system is scheduled for 2025. According to the developers' calculations, the project will cost approximately 169 billion tenge, excluding average annual costs of 48.42 billion tenge over 10 years. At the same time, the estimated savings from preventing damage to highways will amount to over 1.5 trillion tenge.
Against this backdrop, a statement from the Ministry of Transport that trucks are to blame for the poor state of the roads sounds particularly interesting.
Regarding the project's budgetary effectiveness, the developers claim that by 2035, direct budget revenues alone will amount to over 515 billion tenge. This includes fines for various violations, taxes, and fees for vehicle passage.
Indirect socio-economic benefits, which include reducing losses associated with deaths and injuries in road traffic accidents, decreasing wear and tear on the road surface, and creating new jobs, will total around 2.34 trillion tenge.
The system will make it possible to track violations of various types and transfer the materials to the relevant authorities.
The developers cite high information security, the ability to update the system without interrupting its operation, and the possibility of launching copies of the service if the load increases as the main advantages of the ICS.
In other words, a significant modernisation of the current IATS traffic database is in store.
The implementation schemes for the ICS will be approved jointly with the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
If we set aside for a moment the fact that the project promises to bring considerable profit, the very necessity and quite predictable effectiveness of the intelligent control system (ICS) raises no questions.
However, it would be entirely justified to ask questions about the goals pursued by Mr Turlov in implementing a PPP project uncharacteristic of Freedom.
It is quite possible that Mr Turlov's interests are obvious. After all, if the company possesses all transportation data, it will allow the expansion of the insurance services of Freedom Insurance, which, it must be said, would be a perfectly sound commercial decision.
Incidentally, there are suggestions that the active promotion of the ICS project was carried out by none other than Marlen Sikhayev – an advisor to Timur Turlov, who once held the post of deputy chairman of the board of Freedom Insurance Company.
It is worth noting that Mr Sikhayev is known not only for his activities at Freedom. For several years, Marlen Sikhayev worked in the team of former digitalisation minister Bagdat Musin, holding the position of deputy chairman of the board of JSC "National Infocommunication Holding "Zerde".
Perhaps no less intriguing is the very intention of Freedom to invest in Sergek Group.
Be that as it may, the editorial team of FBRK has tried to figure out what Mr Turlov's true interest is in undertaking this PPP project. We will tell you more about this later.