For reference: Transparency
Kazakhstan experts interviewed 9,000 respondents at the level of cities, regional and district centers and studied 1,347 requests received on the Open Dialogue portal.
"The study involved about 200 field sociologists and 12 analysts who conducted a survey in 3 cities of national significance, 14 regional and 143 district centers across the country this fall. The methodology is based on two global studies by Transparency International – the Global Corruption Barometer, which measures the corruption experience of the population, and the Corruption Perception Index, which assesses the relevance of the topic of corruption in public discourse, " O. Shiyan said.
37.4% of citizens and 45.9% of entrepreneurs indicate a decrease in corruption in their locality over the past year. 11.3% of respondents faced domestic corruption when applying to state agencies (13.4% in 2019). 8.2% of representatives of SMEs faced the need to solve the issue informally when applying to government agencies (9.2% in 2019).
It is necessary to note a positive picture in the business community: more than 80% of the surveyed entrepreneurs believe that it is quite possible to develop their business in Kazakhstan without paying bribes and working exclusively in the legal field.
The President (70%), the Anti-Corruption Agency (63% and 65%), the Government (59% and 62%), the Agency for Civil Service Affairs (55% and 59%) and the Nur Otan Party (53% and 55%) have the highest confidence in the opinion of citizens and the business community.
More than 60% of the surveyed Kazakhstanis reported that they are ready to assist in the fight against corruption.
According to the results of the survey, the regions and state bodies where people most often face corruption were also identified, as well as a list of the most corrupt public positions, typical causes and circumstances of corrupt transactions, and the amount of bribes.
According to citizens, most often it was necessary to solve issues in an informal way in Zhambyl, Atyrau, Almaty, Karaganda, Kyzylorda, West Kazakhstan regions, and according to entrepreneurs - in the cities of Nur-Sultan, Shymkent, Akmola, Pavlodar, Kyzylorda, Karaganda, Zhambyl, Almaty, West Kazakhstan region.
The most corrupt state institutions are polyclinics and hospitals, police, tax and fire services, land relations and urban planning authorities, PSC, state kindergartens and universities, where two-thirds of the reported cases of informal interaction took place.
The main reasons were the need for citizens to get treatment or referral for treatment (12.7%), get a job (10.1%), assign a child to a kindergarten (6.1%), solve a land issue (6.5%), get a certificate from the PSC (5.1%), "close" the session (4.4%), submit a tax report (9%), avoid responsibility for violations (8.4%).
It is worth noting that the respondents ' involvement in corruption is influenced not by the frequency of requests, but by the degree of the recipient's interest in the service.
Respondents noted that in half of the cases, the initiators of the informal solution of the issue are employees of state institutions, and in every fourth – intermediaries. "During the year, the share of intermediaries in corrupt transactions increased by 6%, which respondents attributed to insufficient information from state institutions during the quarantine period," O. Shiyan said.
Two-thirds of the respondents reported that if an employee of an institution wants to receive a bribe, he will show red tape and exceed his authority. The amount of bribes ranged from 1,000 to 300,000 tenge (in 2019 - from 500 to 500,000 tenge).
The results of the analysis of the Open Dialogue portal showed that information about corruption was more often sent to the blogs of the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Agency, the Ministers of Internal Affairs, Finance, Health, justice, Labor and Social Protection, digital development, as well as the chairman of the State Revenue Committee. In the regional context, complaints were more often received on the blog platforms of the akims of Almaty, Pavlodar regions and Almaty.
The applicants expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of work of the police, district akimats, State hospitals and polyclinics, tax authorities and private bailiffs. According to citizens, the main reasons for complaints were red tape, inaction of state bodies in considering appeals, incompetence of employees, technical errors and incorrect information in state databases.
DETAILED RESULTS OF THE STUDY ARE PRESENTED ON THE WEBSITE OF TRANSPARENCY KAZAKHSTAN