The FBRK editorial team has received an appeal from transport sector workers, which they claim to have sent to a number of high-level state bodies.
The appeal contained information about alleged systemic violations in the work of the committee for roads and transport control.
The authors of the appeal claim that individuals without specialised education and the necessary experience in the transport sector are being appointed to senior positions in the department.
In particular, this concerns the chairman of the committee, Altai Ali, whose career began in the hotel industry.
The appeal's authors also level similar criticisms at other appointed officials, for example, Gani Salmaev, the head of the road transport control department, who, in their opinion, also lacks the relevant education.
The document also describes an alleged scheme for handling permits in the sphere of transport control.
Special attention in the appeal is given to the situation on the border with China, where a persistent system of unofficial payments for processing documentation for freight transport is said to have formed.
The geography of the alleged violations covers several regions of the country, including the Zhambyl region, Almaty, and Shymkent, where, according to the complainants, similar mechanisms for handling documentation and obtaining unofficial income are in operation.
The complainants express concern about the impact of the current situation on the development of the transport sector.
In their view, the existing system leads to a decline in the quality of vehicle control, the creation of artificial barriers for honest market participants, a loss of trust in state bodies, and a worsening of the investment climate in the industry.
It should be noted that such information always requires a cautious approach, as it is impossible to know exactly what interests its authors may be pursuing.
Sometimes such appeals may be driven by personal or corporate interests, and it is important to consider possible hidden agendas.
Nevertheless, it is worth acknowledging that complaints do not arise without reason. Even if the appeal contains questionable claims, it may point to a real problem that requires careful analysis and verification.
Furthermore, the situation in the country's transport sector is far from ideal.
For example, in May last year, the FBRK editorial team reported on popular manipulations involving foreign permit forms (FPFs), for which entire groups of shell companies are created with the aim of obtaining as many FPFs as possible for subsequent resale to carriers.
In January of this year, the committee for road transport and transport control presented a project proposing to reform the permit form distribution system.
In particular, it addressed the elimination of the artificial shortage of forms and their illegal resale on the black market.
However, in February, the owner of a transport company, Bolatbek Aliev, stated that the problems with FPFs remain unresolved.
Furthermore, in October, our editorial team raised the issue, related to the influx of road transport companies from Russia and Belarus into Kazakhstan, which are actively developing the Kazakh freight market.
At that time, we sent an official request to the Ministry of Transport to find out whether there is a process of squeezing out domestic carriers from the international transport market in Kazakhstan. The detailed response from the ministry can be found via this link.
Returning to the subject of today's article, it is worth noting that, in light of the numerous problems in the transport sector, the appeal from workers to the competent authorities appears to be a perfectly natural reaction to the current situation.
Our editorial team intends to investigate the alleged systemic violations in more detail. To this end, we have sent official requests to the Ministry of Transport and the Presidential Administration.