Unpaid fines in Kazakhstan comparable to EXPO costs

More than 200 billion tenge ($1.1 billion) of unpaid penalties have piled up over the past 5 years in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews reports citing the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Askhat Daulbayev.

"Over the last 5 years the number of unfulfilled orders [imposing administrative penalties] has doubled - from 218,000 in 2010 to 574,000 this year. Their total amount already exceeds 200 billion tenge," Daulbayev said speaking at a meeting of the Coordinating Council for  Rule of Law, Law Enforcement and Fight against Crime.

This amount - 201 billion tenge - the Prosecutor's Office likened to half the cost of the EXPO-2017 ($3 billion) exhibition to be held in Astana.

"In the past 10 months competent authorities have issued nearly 2.5 million orders imposing administrative fines that totally exceed 100 billion tenge ($550 million), of which only 50 percent have been collected, while half of the fines still remain uncollected. Unfortunately, we have not been able to overcome this threshold of 50 percent so far," Daulbayev said.

He added that the state budget needed these funds more then ever since Kazakhstan was planning to launch a large-scale transport infrastructure program Nurly Zhol in the coming years.

The biggest share of all these unpaid dues is represented by debts to the tax authorities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Committee on Regulation of Natural Monopolies and Protection of Competition. The unpaid penalties piled up in these areas account for more than a half of all the penalties. A similarly low rate of collection is observed in the judiciary, border and customs services jurisdictions.

"According to our evaluation, this situation is a result of endemic violations committed from year to year by the authorized bodies. In violation of the administrative law measures are not taken to establish the sources of income of offenders," Daulbayev said.

He added that statistics was often distorted. "In six months of this year the office of Almaty administrative police alone covered up 95 orders totaling 600 million tenge ($3.3 million) by failing to enter them into the records," the Prosecutor General said.

By Dinara Urazova