The Prosecutor's Office of the West Kazakhstan Region cancelled the tender for the maintenance of the street and road network and sanitary cleaning of Uralsk due to violations of competition conditions.
According to the press service of the department, in January the city akimat announced two open tenders worth more than 5.3 billion tenge.
Unreasonable requirements regarding the work experience of potential suppliers were found in the tender documentation, which violates public procurement legislation and restricts competition. Following a protest from the regional prosecutor's office, the tenders were cancelled.
It is noted that last year similar work on the maintenance of the city worth more than 6 billion tenge was carried out by a single supplier, creating a monopoly position.
“At the request of the prosecutor's office, the Department of the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition of the WKR conducted an investigation, during which facts of anti-competitive actions on the part of the Housing and Communal Services Department of the Uralsk City Akimat were confirmed,” the statement reads.
As a result, the authorised bodies issued an order to eliminate the violations and brought the head of the Housing and Communal Services Department to administrative liability in the form of a fine in the amount of 150 MCI (589,800 tenge).