The editorial team at FBRK continues to analyse the largest public procurements of Kazakh government agencies in 2024.
In a previous article, we examined the most expensive contracts of the Ministry of Science and Education, where initially around 187 billion tenge was planned solely for training higher education specialists, of which approximately 178 billion tenge has actually been paid.
Today, our analysis focuses on the Ministry of Justice — the department responsible for shaping and implementing the country's legal policy. Its activities cover a wide range of areas: from law-making to protecting citizens' rights, from registering legal entities to overseeing the enforcement of court decisions.
The largest procurement by the Ministry of Justice in 2024 was a contract for conducting forensic examinations worth 14.8 billion tenge. The recipient of these funds was the 'Centre for Forensic Examinations of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan'. This refers to forensic medical, forensic narcological, and forensic psychiatric examinations for criminal, civil, and administrative cases. In essence, the state is financing the critically important infrastructure of justice - without expert opinions, the fair resolution of many court disputes is impossible.
Another 450.5 million tenge was allocated to provide the population with legal information and to ensure universal free access to the database of regulatory legal acts. This is part of the important work to improve citizens' legal literacy and ensure the transparency of legislation.
170.9 million tenge was allocated for the development of advisory documents on regulatory policy and drafts of legislative acts. The contractor was the 'Institute of Legislation and Legal Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan'. This institution also received 74.8 million tenge to carry out scientific legal expertise of draft laws and international treaties.
Another 59.4 million tenge was directed towards the scientific linguistic expertise of draft laws and international treaties. It may seem like a simple text check, but how a law is applied in practice directly depends on the quality of the wording.
64.8 million tenge was allocated for analysing the effectiveness of current legislation. This work is necessary to identify outdated norms and assess the real impact of adopted laws on society and the economy.
A significant portion of the funds was allocated to maintaining and developing information systems. For instance, 140.7 million tenge was allocated for the maintenance of the state database 'Individuals', and 79.1 million tenge for the 'Legal Entities' database. A further 63.7 million tenge was allocated separately for maintaining the software code of this database.
125.4 million tenge was spent on serving the servers of the ministry's state databases and information systems. 104.5 million tenge was spent on ensuring information security, which seems entirely justified in the era of cyberattacks and data leaks.
Systemic maintenance of computer equipment, its upkeep and repair, cost the budget 241.1 million tenge. This sum looks substantial, but considering the scale of the department, spread across the entire country, the expenses may be justified.
80.1 million tenge was allocated for supporting the information system 'Unified Legal Aid Information System E-Zań kómegi'. This system is designed to facilitate citizens' access to legal aid, which is particularly important for socially vulnerable groups of the population.
Another 69.8 million tenge was directed towards maintaining the information system 'E-Saraptama', which automates examination processes.
72.1 million tenge was allocated for information and communication services for 'E-zannama'. This system provides access to legislation in electronic form.
Having analysed the largest public procurements of the Ministry of Justice, several key areas of spending can be identified. Forensic examination is the undisputed leader in terms of funding volume (about 14.8 billion tenge). This shows how important the state considers high-quality expert assessment to be for justice. A total of more than 976 million tenge was allocated for the support and development of various information systems, databases, and IT infrastructure. This demonstrates a firm course towards digitalisation of all processes in the justice sector. Around 370 million tenge was allocated for the expertise of draft laws, analysis of legislative effectiveness, and linguistic research. Over 450 million tenge was directed towards ensuring citizens' access to legal information. It should be noted, however, that all these figures reflect only the largest public procurements of the department.
It is striking that many contracts are awarded to the same institution — the 'Institute of Legislation and Legal Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan'. On the one hand, this can be explained by this institute's specialisation precisely in matters of law-making. On the other hand, the concentration of public procurement in one set of hands always raises questions about the efficiency of spending and the lack of competition.
It is also noteworthy that a significant portion of the funds is directed towards maintaining existing information systems, rather than developing new ones. This may indicate that the active stage of creating the digital infrastructure has already been completed, and the time for its operation and improvement has now arrived.
Overall, the expenditure structure of the Ministry of Justice reflects current trends in public administration: digitalisation, an emphasis on expert knowledge, and a drive to increase the accessibility of legal information for citizens. At the same time, the question of the efficiency of using the allocated funds remains open and requires further public oversight. This is particularly true for the largest item of expenditure — forensic examination, where nearly 15 billion tenge is directed to one organisation without clear mechanisms for evaluating effectiveness.
To be continued...