Police have held 14 officials accountable for the maintenance and condition of highways in the Akmola region. The main violations were untimely snow removal and cleaning of the road surface.
According to Polisia.kz, those held accountable include: representatives of local executive bodies, heads of road maintenance sections, and chiefs of railway track divisions from Kazakhstan Railways (KTZ) responsible for level crossings.
"On the initiative of the police department's leadership, on 8 January of this year, large-scale raid inspections were carried out across the Akmola region to check the winter maintenance of highways, in particular, the timely clearing of snow from the carriageway, the application of anti-icing material, and the cutting and removal of compacted snow," the report states.
It has become known that one of the violations was detected on the "Astana-Petropavlovsk" highway. The head of the local road maintenance section was brought to administrative responsibility for failing to meet the requirements for maintaining the section.
Similar violations were detected on other sections of this highway, as well as on the international highway "Almaty-Yekaterinburg". In all cases, the authorised services failed to ensure the cleaning of the road surface, which creates a risk of emergency situations.
To recall, on 3 January, on the "Astana-Shchuchinsk" highway in the Akmola region, between the villages of Kogam and Karatal, a mass pile-up occurred due to a severe blizzard and black ice, in which 95 vehicles were involved.
On 9 January, the press service of JSC "NC "KazAvtoZhol" published a video of the convoy escort prior to the accident. The camera footage shows drivers overtaking each other, failing to follow the rules whilst being escorted in the convoy.