A petition calling for a ban on gambling for civil servants has received more than 180,000 views and the 50,000 signatures required for it to be considered by the government.
The author of the collective request - the executive director of the public association "Әділдік жолы" Didar Smagulov - published the petition on the official portal E-Petition.kz on 29 May this year.
"Corruption, embezzlement, misappropriation, forgery, cover-ups - these are all consequences of a lenient attitude towards gambling among officials. Only a few are caught. However, on a national scale, the problem of gambling-addicted officials is not being resolved", the petition states.
The author believes it is necessary to introduce a complete and unconditional ban on gambling for civil servants, public sector employees, military personnel, and employees of the KNB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and other law enforcement agencies.
"This, as our officials like to say, will 'reduce corruption risks.' Our officials also like to cite international experience. Well, in countries such as the Philippines and Mongolia, similar bans are already in place. And there should be no gambling addicts among our officials either", the statement reads.
According to Smagulov, just one official inspection in a casino in the Almaty Region showed that 305 officials had lost half a billion tenge.
"On average, each lost around 1.7 million. I repeat: this was uncovered by just one inspection (in 2022) and only from official data. There is also a known case where a dozen police officers lost nearly a billion in budget funds in casinos over several years", the activist reported.
For context, the Aktobe City Court previously pronounced a sentence on the chief accountant of School-Gymnasium No. 55, Bekzat Tazhenov, who lost embezzled state funds totalling more than 413 million tenge on bets.