It’s an open secret that corruption is rampant in the Ministry of Transport and Roads of Kyrgyzstan. It is because of the multimillion contracts on construction and repair of roads. There is even a legend among the road workers: if you save on one centimeter of the roadway, you can secure a comfortable future.
The deputies of the Parliament also put the Ministry of Transport on the first position in the ranking of corruptness of the state bodies.
Based on the audits of the Accounts Chamber, 24.kg news agency has compiled a ranking of corrupt departments.
Confidence at zero
The National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic determined the level of public confidence in the government and the level of corruption in the first quarter of 2018.
Kyrgyzstanis rated the level of confidence in the Ministry of Internal Affairs by 12.8 points out of 100, the Ministry of Transport and Roads — by 21 points, the Ministry of Health — by 16.2 points, the State Agency of Architecture, Construction, Housing and Communal Services — by 19.1 points, the State Penitentiary Service — by 8.4 points and the State Registration Service — by 32.2 points.
The State Customs Service has the lowest indicator — 7.9 points. The highest is in the State Information Technology and Communications Committee — 45.8 points.
According to respondents, corruption flourishes in the Customs. In terms of corruption, customs officers went into minus by 15.8 points. The State Penitentiary Service follows it with — 11.2 points. The Ministry of Health also has negative indicators — minus 9.9 points, the Ministry of Internal Affairs — minus 8 points. The State Construction Agency is close to abyss with 0.5 points. The Ministry of Transport has 4.5 points.
The most distant from corruption department is the State Agency for Youth Affairs, Physical Culture and Sports with 39 points.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs received 18.4 points for the quality of work, the Ministry of Transport — 24.7 points, the Ministry of Health — 23.7 points, the State Architecture and Construction Agency- 24.1 points, the State Penitentiary Service — 12.9 points, and the State Customs Service — 14.8 points.
Kyrgyzstanis have less of all claims to the work of the State Registration Service — 36.5 points and the Ministry of Emergency Situations — 46.2 points.
Bonuses for customs officers
The population rightly does not trust the State Customs Service, and those who have had to deal with the customs officers know how corrupt this service is. The former head of the service, Adamkul Zhunusov, was put on the wanted list, and his deputies were detained within a high-profile criminal case with material damage in the amount of over 166 million soms.
The customs officers provided the private company with preferences in payments to the budget, although the imported goods should have been registered on a general basis.
Officials not only came up with a scheme for extortion of money, but also gave themselves bonuses «for good work.»
The audit of the Accounts Chamber for 2016 states that 17.4 million soms had been spent on bonuses at the expense of special funds.
The State Customs Service has no calculation to the estimates of expenditures of budget funds and special means of its all subordinate institutions. Salary and travel expenses had been repeatedly specified.
During the year, 1,081 violations were revealed in the sphere of customs legislation: 886 administrative cases were instituted, 490 of them were committed by individuals, 369 — by legal entities, and 25 — by officials.
At least 195 criminal cases were initiated where damage to the state budget was recovered in the amount of 82.9 million soms. Six materials for 5.2 million soms were sent to the State Service for Combating Economic Crimes.
Looting by road builders
Violations for 235.3 million soms were revealed in the Ministry of Transport and Roads for 2016.
Shortages and embezzlement of inventory amounted to 7.7 million soms, unjustified salary payments — 1.9 million soms, overestimation of the volume of construction and installation works — 225.6 million soms.
In addition to the overestimation of the volume of construction and installation works, the specialists of the Ministry of Transport twice counted the cost of bridges construction.
Discrepancies for 23.1 million soms were detected in reconstruction of Bishkek — Manas International Airport road due to the overestimation of the amount of work on asphalt concrete pavement. Other 99.1 million soms were spent on asphalt on poorly constructed sections of the road and 2.1 million soms — on patching.
During the reconstruction of Balykchi-Tamchi-Korumdu road, 46 million soms were spent on re-laying of the asphalt.
Surcharge for urgency
Despite the fact that the level of public confidence in the State Registration Service is high, the Accounts Chamber has found significant violations of 15.5 million soms. Their main share are unreasonable payments of salaries.
It turns out that there are harmful working conditions in the central office of the State Registration Service, so the employees were additionally paid 2.2 million soms.
The Department of Population and Civil Status Registration accrued 1.9 million soms, the Department of Cadastre and Registration of Real Estate Rights — 600,000 soms, Infocom State Enterprise — 5.6 million soms.
The Bishkek City Department for Land Management and Registration of Real Estate Rights paid for high qualifications from 20 to 50 percent of official salaries of 2.9 million soms.
The remaining part of financial irregularities was the overpayment of travel expenses for 100,000 soms, half of them was recovered.
In addition, losses in the SRS budget amounted to 92.6 million soms, including overstatement of prices and tariffs by 76.9 million soms and violations in the payment of wages by 10.5 million soms.
The Department of Cadastre and Registration of Real Estate Rights has agreed with the State Agency of Antimonopoly Regulation of the Kyrgyz Republic tariffs for paid services that are not included in the Unified Register of Public Services.
About 75.6 million soms were unreasonably received from clients for work in urgent mode.
Doctors increase wages
Recall, according to the National Statistical Committee, Kyrgyzstanis consider corruption in the Ministry of Health as high. In 2016, at least 24.3 million soms were irrationally used by the ministry.
Doctors deliberately do not reduce vacancies, because their salary depends on it. With an approved staff of 9,500 doctors, 1,100 places were vacant.
Staff overage and un-optimized personnel have a direct impact on wages. That is, the more vacant positions, the more additional wages, calculated by the labor participation rate. As a result, it creates non-parity conditions in the size of salary.
In addition, eight public health organizations had violations of public procurement legislation for 7.4 million soms.
As the Accounts Chamber told to 24.kg news agency, checks continue in some ministries. There are no audit results for 2017 yet. It is difficult to say how much the situation has changed.
Recall, the President Sooronbai Jeenbekov instructed to carefully check the incomes of all officials without exception.
«Check every ministry and department for current corruption schemes, each official individually. Citizens expect concrete actions and tough measures to eradicate corruption. The Security Council Secretariat should examine and work on every application and letter from the public, conduct checks and take appropriate action. No statement or letter should be left unattended. Receive every citizen and solve their questions. There should be no formal replies in the responses of the state bodies,» Sooronbai Jeenbekov stressed.
It is promised to make income and expenditure declarations of civil servants public in October.
