The case of Kairat Uralbekov, convicted of embezzling budget funds, has taken a new turn. The editorial board of FBRK has learned that the former director of the prison enterprise RSE "Enbek-Oskemen" has sent a request to the Department of Justice of the East Kazakhstan Region demanding that debt recovery from the enterprise he previously headed be stepped up, as the debt exceeds one billion tenge.
In his appeal to the leadership of the Department of Justice, Uralbekov, who received a suspended sentence for embezzlement and abuse of office, points to the inaction of the state bailiff regarding the recovery of the multi-billion tenge debt of RSE "Enbek-Oskemen". According to the single debtor registry portal, the bailiff has materials related to the prison enterprise under proceedings, but according to Uralbekov, no effective measures are being taken to repay the debts.
What makes the situation particularly interesting is that the convict is effectively asking the state to recover debts from the enterprise he himself headed during the period when this debt was accrued. According to his appeal, the debt has been accumulating since 2017, and although the RSE continued to sign contracts with budget organisations, the total debt did not decrease year on year.
According to data from the kompra.kz service, the debt of RSE "Enbek-Oskemen" under enforcement proceedings indeed exceeds 1.22 billion tenge. This sum may indicate serious financial problems for the enterprise, which is part of the system of the Committee of the Criminal Enforcement System of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
In his appeal, Uralbekov proposes specific measures to solve the problem. He claims that branches of the RSE, while not being independent legal entities, nevertheless enter into contracts and open current accounts with second-tier banks. In his opinion, imposing seizures on these accounts could help creditors who have been unable to recover their funds for more than eight years.
This apparently concerns suppliers of food for prisoners, construction companies, utility services, and other partners of the enterprise, with whom debt began to accumulate even during the rehabilitation procedure aimed at restoring the solvency of RSE "Enbek-Oskemen".
It should be recalled that Uralbekov was convicted in a case concerning the embezzlement of budget funds during the procurement of medical equipment. The scheme operated through fictitious contracts between state institutions and the prison enterprise which he headed until September 2022.
Following the publication of a previous article, the editorial board of FBRK contacted the Anti-Corruption Service for the East Kazakhstan Region for official comment. According to the department, the court initially sentenced Uralbekov to five years in prison, but the appellate instance changed the sentence to a suspended one in November 2023. The service emphasised that the guilt of other individuals mentioned by the convict in his appeals has not been established, and the verdict has entered into legal force. However, the convict himself continues to assert his innocence and states his intention to appeal to the President based on the response from the Department of Justice.
Uralbekov has previously appealed to various state bodies with complaints about violations during the investigation of his case, accusing an officer of the Department of Economic Investigations of a conflict of interest, whose relatives, he claims, were involved in the corruption scheme.
The situation is unusual: a man convicted of financial violations at an enterprise is now effectively pointing out to the state the problems of recovering debts from that same enterprise. Meanwhile, creditors have indeed been unable to get their money back for eight years, and the billion-tenge debt of RSE "Enbek-Oskemen" remains an unresolved problem. Time will tell whether this appeal will serve as a stimulus for more active work on debt recovery, or whether the multi-billion tenge debt of the prison enterprise will remain merely on paper for the bailiffs.