A sentence has been passed in the Mangystau Region on businesswoman Dinara Shakenova, who was responsible for supplying food to the school canteen in the village of Beshshoky, where more than 460 pupils were poisoned last year.
According to Lada.kz, the court established that the defendant had been carrying out entrepreneurial activities in the catering sector with gross violations of sanitary and epidemiological requirements.
As a result, the court sentenced Dinara Shakenova to one year's imprisonment with a ban on engaging in entrepreneurial activities in the public catering sector for a period of 3.5 years. The defendant herself did not admit guilt.
For context, in September last year, in the Beshshoky residential area of the village of Mangystau, Munaily District, Mangystau Region, 462 junior schoolchildren were poisoned en masse after lunch in the canteen. At that time, the Minister of Education, Gani Beisembayev, ordered inspections in all schools across the country.
At the same time, it became known that the school canteen was operated by Sole Proprietor "Shakenova D". It was reported that the company's annual revenue was estimated at 2.5 billion tenge. Most contracts with the company were concluded via single-source procurement.
Later, intestinal bacteria were found in 20% of the wash and swab samples taken from the school canteen. Staphylococcus was detected in six canteen employees. Additionally, a dishwasher and a food server were found to be carriers of dysentery.
In October, Minister of Education Gani Beisembayev stated that following the incident, the head of the Mangystau Region Education Department resigned, and the deputy governor of the region received a reprimand. Furthermore, the school terminated its contract with the company that provided the catering services.
In January of this year, four employees of the aforementioned school canteen were convicted for working without having undergone a medical examination. The defendants admitted to purchasing fake medical reports for 5,000 tenge.
In February, in the village of Kyzylsay, which is under the jurisdiction of the city administration of Zhanaozen in the Mangystau Region, there was a mass poisoning of 100 pupils from one of the kindergartens.