The first fry is bound to be a flop: Nazarbayev about A Block selection

Nursultan Nazarbayev did not seem completely pleased with the results of the test, since they were not focused on selecting the most competent candidates, but rather on selecting the most knowledgeable ones. Chairman of the Kazakhstan State Service Agency Alikhan Baimenov promised to make the evaluation more comprehensive and develop new tests that would combine a competency test and a laws test, Tengrinews reports. “This competitive examination is a matter that will have to be dealt with later. It should be analyzed. We called onto Akims (governors) of rural areas and Justice Ministry staff to demonstrate thorough knowledge of all the laws. This was some kind of a flop made by the (Kazakhstan State Service) Agency. Let’s consider that the first fry is always bound to be a flop,” President Nazarbayev said addressing the new members of the A Block in Astana today. “I am expecting you to make a sizable contribution into the renewal of the whole state machinery. First of all I expect you to cut red tape, improve the quality of services, strictly adhere to ethics and have no tolerance to corruption,” he said. As a result of the complicated examination called to test the officials for knowledge of Kazakhstan’s laws, many of the merited government officials who have been successfully holding responsible positions for decades found themselves swept aside by the younger generation of civil servants. So President Nazarbayev addressed those who failed to make it into the new elite club: “Those who failed the contest should not think that they have been dismissed completely,” and called to decide on the periodicity of renewal of the A Block. He proposed to hold the contest every 5 years. “Some of the candidates ended up lacking one or two point to enter Block. They shouldn’t loose hearts. They still have the future and a chance to get here. We are not casting them aside," he said. “I heard people say: ‘He was an experienced Akim (governor), but didn’t pass, because he doesn’t know the laws. But he was a good man who served for 20 years.’ (…) All this is understandable, but a good man is not a profession nowadays,” Nazarbayev said. Nazarbayev emphasized that the A Block is not a frozen structure. “It will be transformed and improved he said” calling it the pivot of Kazakhstan’s state machinery. Besides, he called the Kazakhstan State Service Agency to make sure that there is a rotation inside the A Block itself: “The officials of the A Block should become all-round professionals.” “You should not be afraid of new loads and new directions in your work, but take initiative and obtain new skills at public service," the told the members of the Block. After President Nazarbayev’s meeting with the new A Block was over, Chairman of the Kazakhstan State Service Agency Alikhan Baimenov made a statement and promised to make new tests to improve the selection. He said that the tests would be refocused away from knowledge of law and to testing the competency of the candidates: “Now we will be developing methods of evaluation of the candidates that are based on evaluation of their competency. After that, together with our foreign partners, we will introduce the competency test in combination with the test on laws.” He said that in general the A Block enjoyed trust of the society, especially since the latest stages of the tests. “There was some skeptical attitude at the early stages, but after the pool of the official holding managerial positions was renewed by 33 percent, the level of trust became pretty high,” he said. Baimenov also pointed out one more important detail: “The selection was made without any additional funding from the budget. No new evaluation mechanisms requiring larges expenses were developed, and the time we had (to develop the tests) was rather short,” he said concluding his statement.