In the village of Koktobe in the Shu district of the Zhambyl region, a water supply system has not been fully operational for three years. Its construction was completed last year, yet only a few houses have been connected to it. The system cost the budget 760 million tenge.
According to informburo.kz, villagers are forced to carry water from neighbouring villages, as the water from wells is only suitable for washing and cleaning.
"There is no water in the whole village. There is water in only three or four places, but that is far too little for 450 houses. With the tender, this person or that gets the money, but there is still no water. Someone dug a well, someone built something, someone buried it, and that's it. For as long as I can remember, we have always carried water. We still carry it now. I am 58 years old. And I have been carrying water since I was eight or nine.", said a villager, Sanat Adenov.
For their part, local authorities have promised to provide the village with drinking water this summer. They explained the delays by saying that there was an error in the project documentation.
"It should have been delivered by December 2023. The project had some shortcomings; an additional water tower, 18 metres high, needed to be installed, so it was left for this year. Since a request came from the village residents saying they did not have enough water, we recalculated and left it for this year so that the villagers would be satisfied.", said the deputy mayor of the Shu district, Serik Sarsenbekov.
Incidentally, a similar situation has arisen in the neighbouring village of Sauytbek in the Shu district.