The Saryagash District Court of the Turkestan Region has announced the sentence for the heads of the district education department, B. Mairikhov, N. Usipbekov, D. Akatov, and 8 accountants.
According to the press service of the Anti-Corruption Agency, they were found guilty of embezzling 550 million tenge by transferring salaries to individuals who were not actually working in the education sector.
As a result, the court sentenced Akatov and Mairikhov to 7 years' imprisonment each, and Usipbekov to 2 years' imprisonment. The accountants were given various sentences, including imprisonment, suspended imprisonment, and restriction of liberty.
Furthermore, the convicted individuals were permanently banned from holding positions in the civil service and the quasi-public sector, as well as certain positions in financial organisations for a period of 5 to 10 years.
At the same time, the Anti-Corruption Agency noted that to minimise the risks of embezzlement, the country is implementing the "Cloud Accounting" project, which provides for the centralisation of all accounting systems and integration with the databases of state bodies, including the Treasury.
The project is expected to ensure transparency in budget planning, as well as eliminate the risks of entering fictitious data into payment documents and other financial violations. Currently, local executive bodies (akimats) conduct monthly automatic reconciliations of the accounting systems of educational organisations with Treasury reports. Any discrepancies are cross-checked.
"Additionally, the Internal State Audit Committee and its territorial departments have been conducting a desk review of payments since August this year to identify unjustified salary transfers. All suspicious transactions are sent for analysis to the Anti-Corruption Service, the education department, and the organisation that made the transfer", the statement said.
Another innovation is the introduction of a mechanism for automatically checking payment documents for the accuracy of recipients' personal data. Now, all payments to teachers – salaries, travel allowances, bonuses, and holiday pay – are automatically checked against official data using the Individual Identification Number (IIN) and full name.
"Additionally, second-tier banks verify incoming payments against the IIN and bank account data. This completely eliminates the possibility of transferring funds using fictitious data, where a third party's bank account was listed under the name of an active employee", the statement said.
According to reports, the new mechanism applies not only to educational organisations but also to other state institutions that make payments through the treasury system.
It is noted that in 2023, embezzlement in this area exceeded 17 billion tenge, but in 2024, thanks to the new measures, it was significantly reduced to 22 million tenge.