The rules of land tenders will be changed

Peasants who want to engage in farming and cattle breeding cannot get free land from the state without connections and payoffs. This is evidenced by numerous complaints to the National Chamber. The reasons are the lack of clear norms and conditions in the legislation regulating the procedure of land allocation, World of NAN reports with reference to the National Chamber.

According to Yernur Abzhan, Deputy Director of Atameken's Construction and Land Relations Department, in order to engage in agriculture in Kazakhstan, land may only be leased through tenders. If three people take part in the competition and they have the same number of points, the members of the land commission will decide who gets the land. In the rules governing this competition, there is a clause: "if two or three people who participated in the competition have the same score, the winner is determined by voting of the commission members.

In other words, whoever "pleases" the commission, gets the land. This undoubtedly creates conditions for corruption offenses. There are a lot of cases in Kazakhstan, when land plots are given to "their people".

"For example, the akim of the village says: "I know this entrepreneur well, he is proactive, let's give him the land". And the land is given to this person. In addition, farmers complain that they cannot get land without their acquaintances. Now I help three or four entrepreneurs with documents to participate in tenders to obtain land. But when they apply to the district Akimats, they are told directly, "the land has an owner, you are wasting your time participating in competitions". It turns out that the competition is held on paper, and the winner is already predetermined", - said Yernur Abzhan.

The specialist explains that when participating in a competition for land under the relevant rules there is only one criterion on which the points are given. It all depends on how much in the future the businessman is ready to invest in the development of land. A score is awarded according to this criterion. Scores range from one to 20 points.

"For example, if a bidder indicated 31 thousand tenge for one hectare of pasture, he is given the maximum 20 points. But a document confirming this is not required. Everything is prescribed only in the business plan. The one who promised more investments gets the land. The members of the commission give it by voting. And further, whether these investments will be made - no one monitors it. The reason is simple - the terms of the tender have no clear timeline for investments," said Yernur Abzhan.

On such a "crooked" mechanism of the sectoral state body - the Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan (MAK), which does not ensure granting of land to the most efficient farmers, about 3-5 million hectares of land are given away annually. And then the Ministry complains that the agricultural land is not used, the speaker added. In order to eradicate corruption and improve the mechanism of tenders, the experts of the National Chamber made several proposals to the Ministry of Agriculture.

"We suggested the Ministry of Agriculture to set a deadline, so that the promised investments were invested in the land, and the winner of the tender fulfilled his obligation, at the expense of which he beat the other participants. That is, as we see, the tender conditions are now very "underdeveloped," explained Yernur Abzhan.

Experts of the National Chamber noted gaps in legislation and voiced specific proposals. In addition, they have brought the issue to the Government Commission on the problems of business and a meeting of the Work Group, created by order of the President. The experts of the National Chamber proposed to amend the rules of the competition with the criteria, which are defined by the Land Code.

"Article 43-1 of the Land Code specifies the conditions for granting agricultural land. In addition to the planned investment when granting land, it must take into account what agro-technologies will be used, whether there is agricultural equipment, specialists, livestock and other criteria. The Ministry of Agriculture introduced all this into the rules of tenders, but no points are foreseen for these criteria. Points are provided only for the planned amount of investment of the farmer. Then the essence of other criteria requirements was reduced to zero. We have brought all this to the state body, what changes farmers need in the rules of competitions," said Yernur Abzhan.

On the issues, which were previously "ignored" by the state body, there is now progress. The Ministry of Agriculture has begun changing tender rules.

"Last week, the Ministry of Agriculture sent the changes to the tender rules to Atameken for approval. The number of points was reduced from 20 to five for the planned amount of investment. The maximum number of points possible for one application in the competition is 29 points. Suggestions and comments that we voiced were included in the new draft rules. However, unfortunately, not all of them. So there are still gaps. For example, we pointed to the need to determine the final term of investment - how many years they will develop their finances. These and other requirements are not included in the rules," concluded the expert.

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