KZBlog

Registan.net reports on the HIV crisis in Kazakhstan. Yesterday the Minister of Health and the akim of South Kazakhstan oblast There are some who believe the Prime Minister, Daniyel Akhmetov, will step into that role, giving him a graceful exit. Of course, his exit has been being predicted for several years now.

EDIT: The Minister of Transport ended up taking that role. Akhemtov will likely not become the new Minister of Transport!

The Ministry of Health representative in South Kazakhstan stepped down before she could be fired. I incorrectly noted on Registan.net, that she was the sister of the akim of Almaty. She is the sister of the akim of Astana, who is originally from Shimkent.

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In other disturbing news, the President is calling for the head of Kaztelecom, the national telecommunications company to be fired because he has been receiving a salary of 365,000 dollars a month and a two million dollar annual bonus.

The President also asked for other heads of national companies to be investigated to see if they deserve their salaries:

”Kambar Shalgymbaev, president of the Kazakhstan Development Bank received 100,000 dollars a month, and his assistant, 40,000. The salary of the junior head of Kazpochta [the postal service] has been doubled. The Director of the brand-new holding company Samruk gets 34,000 dollars and his assistant, 32, 500 dollars,” the President reported.
[translation mine]

By contrast, advisors to the Prime Minister make around $600 a month and a director of a department at a Ministry can make around $1000-$2000 a month. Last year, Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School was paid $26 million to do a project analyzing Kazakhstan’s economic and industrial competitiveness.

The question remains if the bodies and agencies responsible for checking use of budget funds will also be investigated.

EDIT: Sean Roberts makes a nice post, linking up to a lot of the news on this, and also reminds us that Timur Kulibayev, who is the son-in-law of the President, the leader of a major power group in Kazakhstan, and sits on the Board of Directors of Kazmunaigas, is also deputy director of Samruk. I might add that while the President’s accusations may be weakening Kulibayev’s standing, nothing is being said about his salary at Samruk, or at Kazmunaigas!

It also might be noted that while the holding companies were envisioned originally as a way of modernizing state companies and getting them to run on market and business principles, instead of political principles, the way holding companies are starting to pile up, including holding companies of holding companies, is getting ridiculous. It makes one think, someone figured out how to make a profit on these new arrangements. Or maybe it’s the old Kazakhstani, if one of something is good, 86 is better!