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
- Orda.kz Editorial Team to Cease Operations on September 1
- The Price of a Degree: How Students in Kazakhstan Pay for University
- Second Przewalski’s Horse Foal Born as Species Returns to Kazakhstan
- Kazakh Mining Companies Can Recalculate Purchases if Tenge Weakens
- Kazakhstan Names First Vice President in Three Decades
- What Almaty’s Bus Shelters Are Missing
- 400-Truck Queue Builds at Kazakh–Kyrgyz Border
- Kazakhstan Ready to Help Feed and Rebuild Gaza
- Tokayev Establishes New Presidential Security Body
- Almaty Takes Back Its Nearly Century-Old Hippodrome
- No More Guesswork on Savings: Kazakhstan Tightens Energy Audits for Businesses
- Public Money Could Be Used to Rescue Failing Kazakh Banks
- Third Kazakh Woman Reported Missing in Nepal-China Flood Zone
- Falconer Convicted Over 35 Protected Birds, Spared Punishment Under Amnesty
- Kazakh Citizen Detained in Yakutia in Phone Fraud Case
- Yuan Instead of Dollars? KazMunayGas Draws Record Demand in Asia
- China Gains Oil-Market Influence as OPEC+ Weakens
- Kazakhstan to Divide Smartphones Into White, Gray and Black Lists
- Kazakhstan’s Government Formally Resigns as First Kurultai Session Opens
- Rare Lynx Sighting Recorded in Northern Kazakhstan
