Chiefs of those civil servants convicted of bribes must be punished - anticorruption agency

    Alik Shpekbayev, deputy chairman of the Civil Service and Anti-Corruption Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan considers it necessary to punish not only government officials - bribe-takers, but also their chiefs, Kazpravda.kz reports.
    "We have structures where more than 500 such violations were committed in 2016, and in fact, none of the chiefs suffered a well-deserved punishment. Among them are the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In these state bodies it is necessary to take appropriate measures. If there are systemic violations in the state body, the chief should be responsible for this. Only in this case we can finally put things in order. Today, neither at the regional, nor at the district level, nor at the republican level, a chief was punished," - Shpekbayev said.
    In developed countries, Shpekbayev cited data, for a corruption crime of one employee the entire team can be dismissed.
    Some state bodies had more than 500 corruption manifestations in 2016. "In case only the one who directly received a bribe brought to justice, and not their supervisor, then the efficiency of such measures is very low,” Shekpayev noted. “Therefore, we want to increase personal responsibility of managers for allowing corruption manifestations among their subordinates. There are institutions where to the year end, there were more than 500 facts of corruption. What is that? We consider even one fact an emergency.”
    “For example in Western countries or in Singapore, in USA even one fact of corruption is considered an emergency they resign with the whole team. And we have hundreds of facts today and virtually no managers were punished", Mr. Shpekbayev said.
    According to him, Ministry of Agriculture, the State Revenue Committee of the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as in the akimats have the highest corruption levels.
    Shpekbayev stressed that if corruption is systemic in a state body, then its head must be brought to justice.
    One of the preventive measures of combating corruption, according to Mr. Shpekbayev, is the reduction of the state apparatus and consequent salaries increase. If 35 percent of state employees are cut, then along with savings on administrative expenses, it will be possible to increase the salaries of civil servants by half. And if we do not raise salaries of political civil servants and civil servants of corps "A", we will be able to raise them for the lower tier employees in rural areas, in districts by a factor of three.
    Reported by the Kazakhstanskaya Pravda and Kazinform.