The transport prosecutor's office has uncovered widespread violations in the work of the committee for road transport and transport control following complaints from carriers.
Materials from a December 2024 inspection, confirming systemic problems in the industry previously reported by market participants, have come into the possession of the FBRK editorial team.
The heads of the three largest carrier associations — the National Association of Carriers of Kazakhstan, the Union of Road Carriers and Forwarders of Kazakhstan, and the South Kazakhstan Association of Long-Distance Truckers — filed complaints with the Security Council.
According to reports in some media outlets, the associations claim that the actions of the transport ministry threaten the very existence of domestic carriers and could lead to mass bankruptcies.
Although the results of the transport prosecutor's office inspection in December 2024 were not officially released, the FBRK editorial team has managed to gain access to these materials.
According to information from our sources, the identified violations affect all key aspects of the industry's operation: from problems with the integration of information systems to an artificial shortage of foreign permit forms (FPFs), from malfunctions of automated measuring stations to shortcomings in the regulatory framework.
The problem with FPFs remains particularly acute, as our editorial team has repeatedly written about.
In May 2023, we reported on schemes using shell companies to obtain and resell permits. Despite the fact that in January last year the road transport committee presented a reform project for the permit distribution system, according to transport company owner Bolatbek Aliyev, the situation has not improved.
According to our data, the prosecutor's inspection confirmed the systemic nature of the violations: in the Akmola region alone, 457 unlawful refusals to issue FPFs were recorded, and nationwide a total of 1,292 cases of unjustified refusals were identified.
The artificial restriction of permit issuance creates increased demand and leads to the accumulation of unused stock — in 2023, this reached 91,361 units, including 2,029 in-demand European permits.
Incidentally, permits for transport to the Republic of Lithuania are particularly prized — on the black market, their cost reaches 1,600 US dollars per permit.
It is worth noting that in June 2023, Kazakhstan introduced a system for reusing permits unused for 100 days; however, the electronic database lacks automated tracking of such re-issuances, creating additional risks for the transparency of the process.
The prosecutor's office also discovered equally serious violations in the operation of the committee's information systems. This is despite the fact that the digitalisation of processes was supposed to be the key to solving problems in the industry and reducing the risk of corruption in permit distribution.
It is likely that in this case too, implementation did not meet initial expectations.
The problem of integration of the committee's various information systems with each other deserves particular attention.
According to our sources, the inspection showed this to be one of the main obstacles to effective control and monitoring of carrier activities.
The key tool for transport control bodies — the information and analytical system for the transport database and transport safety monitoring (IAS TDB) — turned out to be effectively isolated.
Despite the fact that the system is designed to automate the accounting of freight vehicles and buses at checkpoints, as well as the exchange of data on transport control results, its functionality has proven to be severely limited.
According to our data, over 2.5 years, the road transport committee has still not completed the integration of the IAS TDB with the systems of the state revenue committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which currently creates ample opportunities for concealing violations in the transport sector.
Furthermore, according to our data, the system operates with serious violations of information security requirements, making it vulnerable to external interference and allowing data alteration without a trace.
The situation is further aggravated by the underdeveloped practice of interaction between the committee and market participants.
Despite the fact that, according to the law "On Road Transport," the authorised body is obliged to ensure interaction between the state and public associations and associations, numerous appeals from the Union of International Road Carriers (KazATO) regarding systemic violations have, as is now apparent, long remained without due attention.
Cases where employees of the Public Service Centres facilitated the illegal issuance of state registration number plates "on a white background" are particularly alarming, as this opened the door for unscrupulous market participants to obtain access to freight transport. As we have learned, relevant facts were established during the prosecutor's inspection.
And this is merely the tip of the iceberg of violations uncovered by the prosecutor's office. The scale and systemic nature of the problems found indicate the need for urgent reform of the entire transport industry management system.
Otherwise, the situation could likely lead not only to the further degradation of the international transport market but also to the complete collapse of the domestic transport system.
What is particularly disheartening is that carriers had to go all the way to the Security Council to draw attention to the industry's long-standing problems. Now, one can only hope that the situation will finally shift from a standstill.