New 126-apartment building declared unfit for living in Petropavlovsk

Prosecutors of North-Kazakhstan oblast have declared 126-apartment building in Petropavlovsk unfit for exploitation, Tengrinews.kz reports. Another new 90-apartment residential building in Petropavlovsk in northern Kazakhstan was also denied exploitation permits because of a poor quality of its construction and noncompliance with standards. “According to the reports made after the check of the above buildings, defects were discovered in the buildings' frameworks. These defects significantly infringe on the service life and reliability of the buildings. Moreover, the construction was behind schedule: the 90-apartment building was not ready to be put into operation after the construction period expired,” the message states. The Petropavlovsk Prosecutor's office suspects some of the money for the construction had been siphoned off. It has initiated a criminal case on embezzlement of budget money. Over 900 million tenge ($6 million) were spent on construction of the buildings. The prosecutors discovered the total of 5 cases of construction violations and initiated criminal cases upon them. “The check discovered many major violations, including one case when the building was accepted into exploitation and all the documents were signed but in fact the construction was not completed and the buildings did not comply with architectural and construction standards,” the authority said. Petropavlovsk is not the only city in Kazakhstan that has this problem, a 5-storey apartment building collapsed in Karaganda in central Kazakhstan on April 6 last year. That building was only 3 years old.