The former head of the Housing and Utilities Department, Zhanbolat Kusmukhambetov, has been convicted in Aktobe. He was found guilty of abuse of office in the implementation of a project with a total cost of 1.3 billion tenge.
According to ORDA, in 2021 the Housing and Utilities Department entered into a contract with Global Construction Development LLP for the construction of cycle paths.
Despite the lack of design and estimate documentation and the non-completion of the work, the contractor received 665 million tenge. Of this amount, more than 34 million tenge was paid out 'without justification'.
The court sentenced Kusmukhambetov to three years' imprisonment with a lifelong ban on holding positions in state bodies and financial institutions.
For his part, the defendant's lawyer believes he is innocent and plans to file an appeal.
'My client only signed the contract, but did not handle the money. After him, four heads of the department were replaced, and the money was allocated in stages by decision of the maslikhat', noted lawyer Baurzhan Imanov.
For context, in March of last year an audit in Aktobe revealed violations in the construction of a cycle path costing more than 1 billion tenge. The city's Housing and Utilities Department filed a lawsuit seeking the return of 34,781,000 tenge spent by the contractor.
At that time, the Aktobe Regional Court brought the contracting organisation to administrative liability under Article 312 of the Administrative Code. For the absence of design and estimate documentation, the company was ordered to pay 738,400 tenge. Additionally, the state audit department filed a legal claim to invalidate the contract concluded between the Housing and Utilities Department and the contractor.