Financial Monitoring Agency Uncovers Price Gouging in Public Procurement Worth Nearly 4 Billion Tenge
Photo: Elements.envato.com, ill. purposes
Deputy Chair of the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA), Kairat Bizhanov, has reported violations in Kazakhstan’s public procurement system conducted through the Omarket platform, Orda.kz reports.
To ensure transparency and reduce the risk of theft, the Omarket.kz platform was created. It is used for public procurement of goods worth up to 100 MCI. The system automatically compares price offers and awards the order to the supplier offering the lowest price. While the process appears fully transparent, we periodically discover discrepancies between initial and actual prices. For example, the price of ordinary packaging tape ranges from 2 tenge to 99,000 tenge per piece — a difference of nearly 50,000 times, Bizhanov said.
According to him, such manipulations are used to artificially inflate average prices. In 7,500 cases, price offers were deleted immediately after the contracts were signed.
A selective audit of 8,000 contracts worth 8.3 billion tenge revealed overpricing totaling nearly 4 billion tenge. In addition, investigators identified cases where products did not comply with technical specifications.
Original Author: Artyom Volkov
Latest news
- Ecology Ministry Explains 13 Million Tenge Fine For Picking Dandelions
- Kazakhstan Refineries Increase Oil Processing Depth To 90%
- High Rates No Longer Keep Kazakh Banks’ Profits Rising, Analysts Say
- Almaty Health Officials Prepare for Possible Hantavirus Cases
- Ministry Says Saiga Deaths Remain Within Natural Limits
- Kazakhstan Faces Shortage of Doctors and IT Specialists
- Kazakhstan Petition Calls for VAT Removal on Feminine Hygiene Products
- Kazakhstan to Publish Register of Convicted Economic Crime Offenders
- Kazakhstan’s Economy Grew 3.6% in Four Months
- Shymkent Colleges Used Fictitious Students to Steal Over 1.3 Billion Tenge
- Almaty Court Extends Chechen Activist’s Extradition Arrest
- Record Rainfall Hits Almaty
- Falling Caspian Sea Level Reshapes Northern Coastline
- Kazakhstan Says It Is Ready To Help Resolve Iran’s Nuclear Issue
- Pashinyan Explains Why He Will Skip The EAEU Summit In Astana
- Kazakhstan To Gradually Cut University Programs In Oversupplied Fields
- Kazakhstan Offers Indonesia A Route To Central Asia And Europe
- Kazakhstan Tightens Rules for Master Plans and Urban Development
- Kazakhstan Approves Rules for Digital Tenge Circulation
- Military Jets to Conduct Training Flights Over Astana
