Introduction
Considering that at present, at the initiative of the leadership of the republic and at the request of society, a course has been taken in our country to build a New Kazakhstan, one of the primary tasks for building a "fair" state is the fight against corruption, which, unfortunately, has penetrated into many areas of our life.
In his speech at the anti-corruption meeting on February 1, 2022, Head of State Kassym-Jomart Tokayev noted that the uncompromising fight against corruption is one of the main priorities of state policy. In his opinion, in order to establish the rule of law and build a real rule of law state, first of all, it is necessary to eradicate corruption.
At this meeting, a special role was given to the fight against corruption in the customs sphere, construction, education and healthcare.
On February 2, 2022, the "Concept of anti-corruption policy for 2022-2026" and "Action Plan for its implementation" were approved by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The concept is aimed at the transition from the fight against the consequences to the systematic elimination of the prerequisites of corruption, the formation of strong anti-corruption immunity, uncompromising struggle in all directions.
The Action Plan provides for a specific list of measures to implement the provisions of the Concept aimed at solving the following tasks:
- formation of intolerance to corruption;
- exclusion of opportunities for corruption;
- improvement of measures to ensure the inevitability of responsibility;
- strengthening the role of civil society in combating corruption;
- ensuring effective monitoring of the implementation of anti-corruption measures;
- further improvement of the activities of the authorized anti-corruption body.
2. Measures taken to combat corruption
As you know, in accordance with the current anti-corruption legislation, all state bodies, organizations, quasi-public sector entities and officials are required to conduct anti-corruption within their competence.
One of the main tasks of the Department for the Prevention of Corruption is to carry out preventive work with the use of preventive measures.
Thus, in order to prevent corruption offenses, both in the Department itself and in its structural divisions, a set of measures is envisaged and implemented, in particular:
- analysis of corruption risks, allowing to identify vulnerabilities in the Department's activities;
- anti-corruption monitoring, which analyzes the causes and conditions that contributed to the criminal prosecution of employees and develops specific measures to prevent such cases;
- measures to improve the anti-corruption culture, including jointly with the Anti-Corruption Service and other interested government agencies.
In 2022, 13 events were held within the framework of improving the anti-corruption culture, including 10 seminars, 1 briefing, 2 round tables. 102 materials on anti-corruption topics were posted in the media, including 90 publications on Internet resources, 11 videos were posted on social networks, 1 speech on television.
- financial control, within the framework of which, in accordance with paragraph 6-1 of Article 50 of the Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Banks and Banking Activities", we analyze transactions on the card accounts of our employees in JSC "Caspian Bank", which allows us to control suspicious cash receipts on the cards of employees of the Department.
According to the monitoring results, there are concrete facts of dismissal of unreliable employees. These measures were carried out in the system of state revenue bodies for the first time and, at the direction of the Ministry of Finance, were adopted as a positive experience for implementation in all structural divisions of the Ministry.
In 2022, with the participation of the anti-corruption service , we conducted:
- live broadcast on the topic "Open dialogue on the ongoing work to reduce corruption risks on the Facebook platform on the almatyanticorruption page (ALMATYANTICORRUPTION);
- meetings with employees of departments of the Department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the participation of the First Deputy Head of the Department of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Combating Corruption in Almaty – Taumurat D.T., Ethics Commissioner of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kaliyasov A.E., representatives of the Department for Combating Corruption in Almaty;
- round tables to discuss issues of customs and tax administration, systemic problems of business and the population of Almaty on the site of "Antikor Ortalygy", as well as on business protection with the participation of Deputy Akim of Almaty Abdikadyrov A.E., Head of the Prevention Service of the Anti-Corruption Agency Akhmetzhanov S.K., the leadership of the DGD in Almaty, as well as entrepreneurs.
On February 15, 2023, meetings were held with the leadership of the Anti-Corruption Service and the Akim of Almaty.
Another important factor affecting the reduction of corruption is the digitalization of public services, which significantly reduces the contacts of taxpayers and foreign trade participants with officials.
To date, 43 out of 44 public services, or 97.7%, are automated. In total, in 2022, the state revenue bodies of Almaty provided 3,168,682 public services (January 2023 – 327,374), 99.5% of them in electronic form.
The projects "E-Salyq Azamat" (530645 taxpayers) and "E-Salyq Buisness" (18949 NP) are successfully functioning, when the taxpayer can get all the necessary services online. A positive role in the prevention of corruption is provided by the introduction of the Unified Platform for Receiving and processing citizens' appeals "E-Otinish", which allows providing full feedback to the population through Internet resources. In 2022, 54011 citizens' appeals were received and processed (January 2023 – 4496), including 1411 complaints (January 2023 – 163).
In order to reduce corruption risks, notifications based on the results of desk control are executed by taxpayers remotely without actual contact with Department officials. In 2022, 53675 notifications were generated and sent in this way (January 2023 – 19093) for a total amount of violations of 4,043.3 billion tenge (January 2023 – 9.2 billion), of which 24367 notifications for violations of 2,387.0 billion tenge were remotely executed by providing an electronic explanation.
In 2022, 302641 declarations were registered in IS ASTANA-1, of which 198,835 declarations (65.7%) were identified by the risk management system in the green corridor, i.e. they were issued without the participation of Department officials (January 2023 – 26439 DT of which 17580 or 66.5% in the green corridor).
In order to prevent and prevent corruption manifestations, the premises of the Department, in which employees of the state revenue bodies interact with service recipients, are equipped with a video surveillance system, through which the Situation Center of the State Revenue Committee is constantly monitored. Employees of the department during customs inspection are also equipped with video recorders, the image from which is transmitted directly to the above-mentioned center.
These measures allow us to identify corruption risks remotely, eliminating the contact of officials with the public and business entities.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the measures taken to prevent corruption offenses have a positive effect, as evidenced by the dynamics of reducing the facts of bringing employees of the Department and its structural divisions to criminal responsibility from year to year.
In the past 2022, 2 criminal cases were initiated against Department officials, for which 3 employees were detained (in 2019, cases were initiated against 5 employees, in 2020 – 5, in 2021 – 3).
In 2022, 4 officials were convicted (2018 - 15, 2019 - 2, 2020 - 6, 2021 - 5).
In 2023, as part of the initiated criminal case, a pre-trial investigation is underway against 2 officials of the Department.
3. Analysis of the causes and conditions contributing to corruption offenses
The analysis of the causes and conditions that contributed to the commission of corruption offenses showed that one of the main factors affecting the susceptibility of employees to corruption is the low level of material support for employees of state revenue bodies, which negatively affects their motivation in the conscientious performance of their official duties.
According to my instructions, an analysis was carried out in the structural divisions of the Department and the Department of Internal Affairs to identify a "risk group" from among employees who have financial difficulties. It is established that about 40% of employees of the Department and the Department of Internal Affairs potentially belong to this group. There is a high level of creditworthiness of our employees, who are forced to spend most of their wages on mortgage payments and other types of loans.
In this regard, we have repeatedly raised before the State Revenue Committee and the Ministry of Finance the issue of revising the remuneration system and creating a bonus system, in which a substantial monetary allowance would be paid at the end of the year, depending on performance indicators.
Currently, the Ministry of Finance is considering a significant increase in salaries for employees of state revenue bodies. At the same time, most of all, the salary should increase for employees at the grassroots level (RUGD).
Risk analysis and anti-corruption monitoring have revealed a number of corruption-prone areas in the Department's activities, which we need to pay special attention to.
In particular, there are risks of receiving illegal remuneration by employees of customs posts and other units of the customs block in the implementation of various forms of customs control, including for speeding up the issuance of declarations, reducing the amount of additional charges for the customs clearance of goods, poor-quality customs inspection.