Foreign experts to check quality of Kazakhstan roads

Kazakhstan Ministry of Transport and Communications has prepared a draft law providing for participation of international expert companies in acceptance of Kazakhstan roads into service, KazTAG reports citing Kazakhstan Minister of Transport and Communications Askar Zhumagaliyev. “The draft law reforms the whole road construction process,” Zhumagaliyev said during the public hearings on the state program for infrastructure development to be implemented until 2020. “The suggestion is currently being coordinated with other state authorities. The essence of the suggestion is that the Road Commission will be dealing with policy and regulatory documents only. The national operator will build the roads and their quality will be checked by companies accredited with FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers), the way it is done in many countries,” Zhumagaliyev said. He reminded that under the current rules road construction is supervised by the Road Commission of the Ministry of Transport and Communications. “Now the layout is as follows: the Road Commission is a client (ordering construction of roads), it is also the one that accepts the roads into service and deals with all the maintenance issues. This is also incorrect from my point of view, because almost everything is concentrated in one place. And of course, this hinders the processes of roads development,” the Minister stressed. Checks by international experts have already been practiced in Kazakhstan: the quality of roads of Western Europe-Western China corridor was checked by international experts. “You can drive on these roads: they are excellent and of a good quality. They have been accepted by accredited companies. These are frequently foreign companies: Austrian, German and Korean. This takes time, but we have to have good and high-quality roads,” the Minister said.