In November 2020, the then-acting Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Askar Mamin, shared plans to improve land legislation, stating that the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Justice, and the MCRIAP were working on creating the information system "Unified State Real Estate Cadastre" (USREC). The executor for this project was the NAO State Corporation "Government for Citizens."
It was assumed that the USREC would provide for the maintenance and management of cartographic information and spatial data, including the provision of space monitoring data on the location of land plots, buildings, structures and constructions, and agricultural land, for which JSC "NC "Qazaqstan Gharysh Sapary" was responsible.
Furthermore, it was promised that the USREC system would enable the use of data in the information systems of state bodies, the maintenance and management of title documents, project and technical documents for real estate in electronic form, and also ensure the transparency of real estate transactions and deals.
It was reported at the time that the relevant draft Law had been developed and sent for approval to the Presidential Administration. In April 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law under which land plots in Kazakhstan would be allocated in electronic format. From that moment, Kazakh citizens began to have regular difficulties with real estate transactions.
Initially, it was reported that from April to May, the acceptance of applications for real estate-related services would be temporarily suspended due to the transition to the new information system. In June, the situation recurred. And in July, the NCE "Atameken" drew attention to failures in the new system: from July 1st, entrepreneurs were supposed to be able to submit applications for land electronically, but the USREC service was not working properly.
The National Chamber noted at the time that none of the promised services of the digital portal were functioning, basic information about land plots was unavailable, and satellite images on the map of Qazaqstan Gharysh Sapary were of very low resolution, making it impossible to register a land plot or obtain other necessary information on this map.
In addition, it was reported that as an alternative solution, land on the border of cities could be obtained in two ways: through an electronic auction and directly through the akimat (local executive body), but the akimats themselves were unable to figure out how to work with this system. Furthermore, the site was initially created in Russian and then translated into Kazakh. But the state language version of the portal contained many grammatical errors and typos.
It is worth noting that after six months, the situation with the USREC system has not changed – many functions are still unavailable, and the satellite images made by QGhS leave much to be desired. However, we have written about the quality of work of the national spatial data operator repeatedly in a series of materials dedicated to the question of why QGhS, despite having its own satellites, buys space images from foreign companies.
Earlier it became known that the acting Prime Minister, Alikhan Smailov, promised to dismiss employees "slowing down" the digitalisation process of the USREC. He emphasised that all shortcomings must be eliminated in a short timeframe so that the state could provide high-quality public services in digital format from January 1, 2024. Meanwhile, Vice-Minister of the MCRIAP, Aset Turysov, assured that everything had stabilised since December 1st and that all necessary systems were operating normally.
Meanwhile, the editorial board of the FBKC (Fund for Combating Corruption) decided to find out which company was involved in developing the USREC IS and how much money was allocated for it, and therefore sent a corresponding request to the authorities.
WHO IS BEHIND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE USREC IS
As reported by the NAO State Corporation "Government for Citizens", the developer of the USREC IS is "Tamur" LLP. The State Corporation modestly kept quiet about how much money was allocated for the system, so we calculated it ourselves.
Thus, the initial contract for the development of the first phase of the project "Creation and Implementation of the Information System of the Unified State Real Estate Cadastre" was concluded back in November 2018 (long before the signing of the Law). The contract amount was 207 million tenge.
Subsequently, in June 2019 and in October 2020, contracts were concluded for the development of the second and third phases of the USREC information system project. The contract amounts were 357.4 million tenge and 257.9 million tenge, respectively.
In June 2021, a contract was concluded between the State Corporation and "Tamur" LLP for services to support the USREC IS. The transaction amount was 106.4 million tenge. In August 2022 and 2023, similar contracts were concluded for amounts of 284.4 million tenge and 531.9 million tenge.
Thus, over 6 years, the state has already spent over 1.7 billion tenge on the incorrectly functioning USREC system. One can only guess how much more money will be needed to bring it to a working state.
As for the developer company, "Tamur" LLP has been registered on the market for over 20 years. Its main activity is software development. The most prominent founder of the company is the President of the Kazakhstan Association of IT Companies, a native of the village of Maraldy – Nurlan Isin.
During 2023, we released an entire series of materials dedicated to events in Maraldy, in which we noted that, according to journalist Denis Krivosheev, one of the initiators of the protests was Nurlan Isin. Read details about the activities of the Isin family here.
Nurlan Isin worked for many years in senior positions within the structures of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Over the years, he was Chairman of the Board of the GP Republican Budget Bank, General Director of the RGP TsIFS of the Ministry of Finance, and the first Chairman of the Board of JSC "National Information Technologies".
Among other things, Nurlan Isin is known for implementing the SWIFT system into the banking system, as well as being involved in organising the transfer of the cash execution function of the state budget and the settlement and cash centres of the National Bank to the purview of the Ministry of Finance.
Isin's co-founders in the company "Tamur" LLP are Berik Berentaev, Yerik Berentaev, and Yerlan Mukaev. Berik Berentaev is also the first head of "Tamur" LLP. Yerik Berentaev appears in "Tamur Systems" LLP.
"Tamur" LLP has a medium degree of risk regarding tax obligations. For 2023, the company paid 205.3 million tenge in taxes (in 2022 – 126.2 million tenge, in 2021 – 92.7 million tenge, in 2020 – 72.2 million tenge).
It is known that digitalisation, particularly work with space data, is an incomprehensible field of activity for many in Kazakhstan. In this regard, business in the digital direction is quite profitable, especially if it regularly requires unfounded investment.
It is not impossible that the state will need to spend many more billions for the system to work smoothly. With all this, there are plenty of specialists in the country who could develop this system in much less time and for much less money, which we have been repeatedly convinced of.
Furthermore, there is no certainty that the USREC IS will ever actually work as long as it is handled by the national spatial data operator JSC "NC "Qazaqstan Gharysh Sapary" and a company behind which stands a scandalously famous activist, skilfully masking his goals under the guise of public opinion.
It is quite likely that further financing for the project will be wrung out using already well-practiced methods.