In the Karabalyk district of the Kostanay region, a sentence was handed down to two chief specialists from the regional phytosanitary control department.
According to the press service of the regional prosecutor's office, they received bribes from 13 truck drivers ranging from 2,000 to 20,000 tenge. The bribes were intended for the unimpeded transportation of quarantine-regulated products across the border without inspection.
The inspectors and those who paid the bribes were sentenced to various terms of punishment, though the exact terms have not been disclosed.
They were also permanently banned from holding positions in the civil service. Furthermore, the amount of bribes received was recovered from the inspectors.
"At the request of the state prosecutor, the court issued a special ruling addressed to the Committee of State Inspection in the Agro-Industrial Complex of the Ministry of Agriculture, with the aim of strengthening preventive work among employees and eliminating corruption offences in the future," the department noted.
It was reported that the verdict was announced in the presence of the bribe-takers' colleagues.
Recall that in January, a sentence was handed down in Astana to the chief accountant of the state enterprise "Phytosanitaria" of the Committee of State Inspection in the Agro-Industrial Complex of the Ministry of Agriculture. The investigation established that the defendant had withdrawn and embezzled 2.7 million tenge from the company's account under the guise of wages.