A criminal case has been opened in the West Kazakhstan Region against LLP «Baystone», which owes the regional budget more than 1.8 billion tenge. The company received hundreds of millions from the budget for the supply of vegetables to the stabilisation fund, as well as a billion for the construction of a vegetable store. However, neither the 'social' potatoes nor the facility itself ever materialised, and the funds were lost.
According to Uralskweek.kz, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of SPK «Akzhaik» Farkhad Zholbayev stated that the investigation concerns the company's management. Court No. 2 of Uralsk has already issued a decision to recover 1.8 billion tenge from the company, and has also seized the company's accounts and property.
According to case materials, in March 2023 the firm received almost 490 million tenge for the forward supply of potatoes, onions and carrots to the stabilisation fund. The produce never appeared in retail chains, while potato prices rose to 300 tenge and above during the winter.
SPK believes the company's management may have resold the goods to Russia, which was experiencing a shortage at the time, with prices nearly double.
"The company owners made a double profit from this. Then they ceased business operations. In the fourth quarter of last year, the LLP was no longer paying any taxes," the statement said.
In 2024, the regional akimat allocated another billion tenge to LLP «Baystone» for the construction of a vegetable store in the Bayterek district. The project, presented as an investment, also failed.
The selection of the stabilisation fund supplier, as clarified by SPK «Akzhaik», was carried out by a commission of the regional akimat chaired by the deputy akim for agriculture, with the participation of maslikhat deputies.
At the time the debts arose, the company's owner was entrepreneur Sergazy Isembayev, who previously headed SPK «Batys» and served on the Aktobe Region maslikhat.
It is reported that in February of this year, he sold «Baystone» to Stanislav Kachalo, owner of JSC «Kazarmaprom». The latter appears in court documents as a party to the appeal proceedings regarding the lawsuit brought by SPK «Akzhaik».