Recently, the press service of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan reported that the petition regarding the recycling fee had received the necessary number of signatures and had been accepted for consideration.
As reported by zakon.kz, the work of the relevant commission will be organised by the Ministry of Industry and Construction of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Meanwhile, disputes over the necessity of the recycling fee continue to intensify.
Why does the recycling fee continue to trouble the Kazakh public?
The recycling fee is a payment that manufacturers and importers are obliged to transfer to the state, so that the product can later be recycled.
According to zakon.kz, since January 2022, the recycling of vehicles has been handled by JSC «Zhasyl Damu», which is state-owned. It is worth recalling that initially, the right to recycle vehicles was held by the private company of Aliya Nazarbayeva – «Operator ROP».
The rate of the recycling fee is calculated separately for each product by multiplying the base rate of 50 monthly calculation indices (MCI) by a coefficient, the value of which depends on the type of engine, its power, and the weight of the vehicle.
The government insists that without this measure, the country's engineering industry cannot develop. And this is indeed not without common sense.
Dealers involved in importing cars are obliged to pay the recycling fee. At the same time, a car assembled in Kazakhstan is exempt from paying the fee. Or rather, the tax is refunded to the businesses.
In turn, a buyer choosing between two identical cars would more likely choose the cheaper one. Accordingly, demand for the more affordable vehicle assembled in Kazakhstan increases.
In this case, it is also more profitable for foreign manufacturers to cooperate with domestic entrepreneurs who organise vehicle assembly locally, which implies industrialisation, jobs, taxes, and so on.
However, what concerns people is not so much why the recycling fee is collected, but rather how it is spent.
After all, the day when recycling will actually be needed will not come for several decades, and in the meantime, considerable sums of money are held by the operator of extended producer responsibility (EPR).
According to the report of JSC «Zhasyl Damu», in 2023 alone, the proceeds from the recycling payment amounted to over 269 billion tenge, of which 238 billion came from vehicles.
A plan for the prudent expenditure of these funds should be a concern for the state, no doubt. One only worries that these revenues do not end up in the pockets of a certain circle of individuals.
It will be recalled that it was previously reported that the petition «For the growth of people's incomes!» was supported by workers from industrial enterprises. This includes employees of the «SemAZ» plant, who mentioned that the idea of abolishing the recycling fee is being lobbied in the interests of particular individuals, and not of the entire nation.