Half of construction companies will close in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan Agency for Construction and Housing and Community Amenities is going to toughen requirements to construction companies and issue licenses for construction of social facilities and housing only to major companies with qualified personnel. Construction companies lacking sufficient qualification are going to be denied licenses, Megapolis writes citing deputy chairman of the Agency Nikolay Tikhonyuk. The authority also urges the State Procurement Law to be amended to make company’s work experience the decisive factor for winning bids, instead of the lowest price. 44 thousand construction licenses have been issued in Kazakhstan. According to Tikhonyuk, only 3-4 thousand companies should be involved in construction of multi-storey housing. Another 15 thousand third-category licenses should to be issues to companies for apartments repairs and works at non-complicated facilities. “What we had before was that any person without any experience, equipment or expertize could come and obtain the license. And there was no way to deny the license to such man,” he said. The licensing system will be toughened from now on. Taking part in a tender for construction of schools, hospitals or residential buildings taller that 5 floors will require at least 5-years of experience in erection of such facilities. To construct bridges and over 20-story buildings, the companies will have to have at least 10-year experience in such works. Tikhonyuk considers it necessary to change the system of defining winners of construction tenders. “How is it possible to construct a facility worth 1 billion tenge ($6.8 million) that passed the state check-up and spend only 900 million ($6 million)? Either something has to be missing or some high quality materials have to be substitute with poor quality ones,” he said. Tikhonyuk insists that experience has to become the main criteria for the tenders.