An election monitoring project was presented at the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs, reported Khabar 24 TV May 7. Civil platform representatives will monitor electoral transparency, barrier-free access to polling stations for those with disabilities and compliance with safety standards. The project developers are also interested in the candidates’ campaign transparency and their equal media coverage. “We should control whether there is a bias or preferences for one of the candidates. We will pay attention to the outdoor advertising. There should be no pressure on entrepreneurs to provide some kind of sponsorship to the election campaign. According to the law, an election campaign should be conducted from specially constituted voter funds. This is a very important issue,” said Kazybek Shaikh, head of the Amanat civil platform’s Almaty branch.
Kazakhstan is developing a national plan until 2025 to protect the rights and improve the quality of life of people with special needs. Beginning in the second half of this year, there are plans to launch a social services portal and revise the standards to ensure the option of technical rehabilitation according to individual needs. Approximately 5,000 microloans will be provided in the rural areas to develop entrepreneurship among mothers with many children and persons with disabilities. “We discussed the issues of accessibility of education, healthcare and employment services at the coordination council on social protection in the East Kazakhstan region. The plan will include new approaches to improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities and provide additional measures to support people,” said Minister of Labour and Social Protection of the Population Berdibek Saparbayev.
The Big Almaty Ring Road, which is expected to accommodate 38,000 vehicles per day, will be commissioned in 2021, reported Kazinform. The builders have completed mobilisation and begun construction and installation. “The Nur Zholy vehicle checkpoint at the Almaty-Khorgos road section along the Western Europe – Western China corridor was put into operation June 22. The contractual obligations of the concessionaire are fulfilled in full. To date, the time of inspection of vehicles has reduced four-fold. Daily vehicle traffic is 200 cars,” said Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development Roman Sklyar.
Birlіk, an asphalt-concrete production plant with a capacity of 100 tonnes per day, will be launched by 2020 in the Turkestan region as part of the Business Road Map programme. The 120-million tenge (US$314,800) project will create 20 jobs. The Shymkent chicken farm that will produce 1,000 tonnes of broiler meat per year, will also be opening. “The number of entrepreneurs in the region reached 16,072 people. The production output was 40.5 billion tenge (US$106 million). The local agricultural producers export goods to countries near and far abroad. For example, last year Gazpromneft-Bitumen Kazakhstan produced 230,000 tonnes of bitumen and 148,000 tonnes were exported to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Astyk Sauda exported 36,300 tonnes of flour products to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan,” reported the regional press service.
The Ministry of Healthcare will build more than 5,500 facilities in the next three years, reported Primeminister.kz. During the past three years, the regions entered into 111 public-private partnership contracts worth 52 billion tenge (US$136 million). The unified plan to develop healthcare infrastructure will be adopted by June based on updated regional development plans. “Many medical institutions require major repairs and reconstruction. We will collaborate with the local authorities on long-term plans for the development of health infrastructure for an eight-year period. We need to ensure the availability of medical care for the regions. We use mechanisms and funds of the local budget for the construction of small rural healthcare facilities. We will develop, in addition to budget financing, a public-private partnership in cities,” said Minister of Healthcare Yelzhan Birtanov.
