The FBRK editorial team continues to analyse the largest government procurements of Kazakh departments in 2024.
In a previous article, we examined the most expensive contracts of the Ministry of Health, where nearly 35 billion tenge was spent solely on training and educating medical specialists – and that is just from the largest purchases.
Today, we turn to the expenditures of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Our editorial team analysed over 40 of the department's most expensive government procurements in 2024. It turned out that most of these contracts have already been terminated by mutual agreement, but interestingly, according to payment certificates, the sums initially stipulated in these contracts were paid out almost in full.
Specifically, this concerns contracts for providing services for training specialists with higher and postgraduate education, and for teaching preparatory department students at various educational institutions across the country.
The leader in terms of state funding volume was the L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University — a colossal 18.89 billion tenge, of which 18.76 billion was actually paid, despite the terminated contract. It is followed by the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University with 15.82 billion tenge (according to payment certificates - 15.61 billion).
The top three is rounded out by the Kazakh National Women's Teacher Training University with a sum of 11.36 billion tenge, while the paid amount totalled 11.23 billion tenge. Here, we also observe nearly full payment of funds under a terminated contract — about 98.8% of the original amount.
The Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University received 10.85 billion tenge (actually 10.67 billion), and the K.I. Satpayev Kazakh National Research Technical University — 10.20 billion tenge (disbursed 9.93 billion).
The Saken Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University received 8.54 billion tenge (actually 7.69 billion), the Academician E.A. Buketov Karaganda University — 6.21 billion tenge (paid 6.12 billion), the K. Zhubanov Aktobe Regional University — 6.10 billion tenge (5.88 billion), Astana IT University — 5.63 billion tenge (5.53 billion), and rounding out the top ten most funded universities is SDU University with 5.05 billion tenge (4.87 billion).
Analysing the data, one cannot help but wonder: why are virtually all the large contracts terminated, yet the money still paid almost in full? On average, the difference between the contract sum and the actual payment is only 1-3%, which looks, to say the least, strange for terminated contracts.
Against the backdrop of these multi-billion terminated contracts, the active ones look surprisingly modest. For example, Torajghyrov University has an active contract for just 362.8 million tenge, and Makhambet Utemisov West Kazakhstan University — for 424.8 million tenge.
Deserving special attention is Nazarbayev University with an active contract for an astronomical sum — 38.19 billion tenge. This is the only active contract whose funding volume surpasses all the terminated contracts of other universities.
Also in 2024, the ministry allocated 1.13 billion tenge for the implementation of international training programmes, retraining, and professional development of personnel abroad. Additionally, there are several contracts for implementing the state order to provide students, master's students, and doctoral candidates with places in dormitories. These sums are quite modest compared to the main contracts: 344.9 million tenge, 360 million tenge, and 307.6 million tenge (the latter being with Karaganda Medical University).
If we sum up all the expenditures under the largest contracts solely for training specialists with higher education, it amounts to around 187 billion tenge, of which about 178 billion was actually paid. And this does not include the active contract with Nazarbayev University.
On the one hand, the huge sums allocated to higher education indicate the priority of this sector for the state. On the other hand, the strange pattern of terminating contracts while maintaining almost full funding raises at least some bewilderment.
In recent years, there has been much talk in Kazakhstan about the principles of transparency and openness in state governance. Perhaps it is time to apply these principles in practice to the sphere of government procurement for educational services — after all, clear, open mechanisms for distributing funds help society see how citizens' taxes work to develop such an important area for the country's future as education.
In the next article, the FBRK editorial team will analyse the largest government procurements of the Ministry of Justice.