(MENAFN- Daily Outlook Afghanistan) NUR-SULTAN - The education sector in Kazakhstan isriddled top to bottom with corruption – that is a dirty open secret that evenchildren know about.
It is deeply unusual, however, for mid-rankingofficials in the Education Ministry to publicly blow the whistle on theirsuperiors for alleged graft, as Anar Kairbekova did recently.
Kairbekova, who runs the ministry's procurementdepartment, issued a public statement on August 27 accusing two seniorcolleagues of embezzling dozens of thousands of dollars by means of a shadysupply contract.
In late 2018, Aryn Orsariyev, the executive secretaryat the ministry, signed off on payment of a 48 million tenge ($124,000) supplyagreement fee despite cautions that the service was unlikely to be delivered,Kairbekova said.
Last week, the procurement chief posted copies ofinternal memos that she had documented how she warned her colleagues that thecontract was unlikely to be completed because of time and technicalconstraints. The agreement was signed on December 14 and was supposed to bedelivered by year's end. Kairbekova's decision to take this spat public nowappears to have landed her in trouble.
Following her public statement in August, the two menthat Kairbekova named – Orsariyev and deputy Education Minister Rustem Bigari –have accused her of engaging in a sustained campaign of defamation and havesaid they will file suit.
Kairbekova last week fired back by taking to Facebook topost what she says are recordings of phone calls between herself and Orsariyevand Bigari. One taped conversation, which has not been independently verified,appears to capture the moment when Bigari urged Kairbekova to put her initialson a contract.
'The risks are too high … the [company] has only existedfor two years, Kairbekova is heard to say. 'They will just take the money andrun. What will we do?
'If so, they will be caught and punished, answersBigari. 'I have reviewed the law. I am taking this risk.
On September 10, Kairbekova posted a video appeal to saythat two days after she went public with her story, she was demoted byOrsariyev.
The Education and Science Ministry, to use its fulltitle, is one of Kazakhstan's most corrupt institutions.
Earlier this year, a former deputy minister, ElmiraSukhanberdiyeva, was detained and charged with abuse of authority and engagingin illegal business practices while on the job. At her sentencing, the judgefined her 6.3 million tenge ($16,500) and allowed her to leave court withoutserving time. And Sukhanberdiyeva is making hay out of the 36 days she spent inthe pre-trial detention center. She announced that she plans to publish a booktitled 'Prison Through The Eyes Of The Vice Minister, which has only generatedmore public harrumphing.
In May, Ramazan Alimkulov, head of the ministry'sNational Testing Center, was arrested on suspicion of corruption.
One month later, the state anti-corruption agency chargedOrsariyev's personal secretary with embezzling 11 million tenge. Kairbekovaused this development as supporting evidence for her claims of malfeasance atthe ministry.
Although Kairbekova is the one making the accusationsthis time, she has faced charges of questionable management techniques of herown in the past.
The anti-corruption agency, which operates at the behestof the president's office, has previously found that after Kairbekova wasappointed to the Education Ministry's Internal Control Department in early2014, she contrived to drive out almost all her eight-person staff.
Kairbekova's owned troubled history suggests thepossibility that this ongoing saga is just as much about the petty, clannishinfighting the besets most areas of government in Kazakhstan as it is aboutcorruption. (Eurasianet)
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