Nazarbayev says civil servants should be paid based on performance

During the government session in Akorda, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said that civil servants would receive wages according to their performance, a Tengrinews correspondent reports.

He specified that “civil servants will have two types of income - basic salary and performance-based bonuses."

The basic salary shall be at the level of 70 percent of the average wages in the private sector, he said.

"We are approximating that the salary should be at a level of 70 percent of the  private sector. Each ministry, agency should rally the funding from its own budget. We will let the ministers, heads of departments decide on the budgets that they are given. If the job is done by one person instead of three, then let it be, raise the wage," the President said.

He acknowledged that it required budget expenditures, "but we should do it for a cause,” he said.

The President also spoke about “parasitism” in the Kazakh society.

"The main task of the state is to provide jobs. A person must do everything else himself," he said.

"You want to work in a rural area - obtain microcredits, develop garden land, keep cattle, sell, earn money. If you don’t - go to the city, the state will give you training for free, we will give you a profession, and provide you with a job, and even housing. Well, what else is there to be done? Our citizens, who love their country and themselves, need to understand that one must work. The ones who work get everything," he said.

Reporting by Renat Tashkinbayev, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina