From regressive state management to progressive

By Timur ISAKHANOV

There must be no half-responsibility in governance: it is fatally leading to hiding expenses and non-execution of laws.

Napoleon I

Degradation of state management in Kazakhstan has actually crossed a red line, behind which starts a direct threat to sustainability of the country. As a matter of fact, three or four years ago situation wasn’t looked horribly different, but then the country had plenty of oil dollars and situation could be handled under control if without skills but with bigger resources. Now though there aren’t both, and unsolvable problems developed among latest years are growing like a snowball rolling down from hill.

If to look to the economy, then there are two options of state utilization of finance. First is when somewhat perspective development has been shouted out loud (brown coal to oil products mini processing refineries, or fibers production on the basis of cannabis fields from Chu river valley), after what nothing happens and everything is quietly dying on paper. The second option is supposing finishing construction of industry object (bio-ethanol, silicon or satellite launch), but then it is not working too. And at one point you can’t even say of the top of your head, which of these models is more harmful.

During “roaring 90’s” the country was tight on finance, and “no money” formula had removed off a major part of overall situation responsibility from authorities. However, when money came during happy 00’s, and came plenty, nothing has changed in effectiveness of state machine working. Controversially, the scales of peculation in comparatively moderate country started to boggle imagination.

Big money brought new problems descending from fullness. Colossal affairs in realty sector, connected with land parcels, cheated shareholders and mortgagers were performed sometimes below noses and sometimes with direct participation of competent state authorities, law-enforcement agencies and law courts. Disability and reluctance of state machinery to protect loyal tax-payers and smallholders from various cheaters has largely annoyed people. One part of citizens came on path of vigorous protests, the other felled into apathy, which is too very negative.

There was written much and detailed about corruption in Kazakhstani state machine, but on this point what is principally, is that for many years there wasn’t any antidote found to fight this lingering and massive disease. When Singapore governor Lee Kuan Yew was asked about how he managed to destroy the corruption in Chinese country, he told the formula: “I gave orders to shoot several close friends of mine, and the rest got everything properly”. Nobody was shot for corruption crimes in Kazakhstan, but releasing from positions and putting in jail is quite often situation these days. However, it didn’t give any positive effect. Vice versa, by witnessing a removal of one or another bureaucratic rival other members of state machinery are starting to steal with double energy. That’s why, seemingly, after all a Singaporean method should be implemented – to shoot relatives and friends.

Explaining the reasons of corruption in the republic, many are often pointing on small amounts of authorities’ salaries. But there are a massive of examples that counts, when clerks in private companies are working for the same money or even less; at that they work hard, effective and responsibly. Thus the factor of salary explains nothing by itself.

Authorities are making people angry not only by their ineffectiveness or small effectiveness, but on strictly behavioral level. Surveys are witnessing that people are outraged by arrogant and swinish manners of state machine representatives, especially in city halls. On this subject it is worth to mention that in majority of private companies, where employees have comparable volumes of salary, their clients are serviced pretty politely. But state service in its present appearance gives somehow different cultural paradigm. And if somebody will slaughter some city hall, then this man will be granted with informal sympathy from common people.

Impotence of state structures in struggle with monopolies and monopolism is for a long time an item of anger. There are no mechanisms and levers which can influence appetites of monopolists somehow. Despite that whether monopolies are natural, unnatural or artificial, they utilizing their situation by maximum using all possibilities. As the result petrol prices in Kazakhstan are higher than ones in US, although the country is exporting oil, not importing. Prices of internet services are only less than in Saudi Arabia. Companies in some regions are paying for water and electricity by stakes on the level of Western Europe. Overall, on top of that penny-ante salaries of the nation are strongly losing its purchasing powers from such realities.

As well as sea reflects in a drop of water, just as by the example of grain harvest 2009 can show systematical problems of state management in Kazakhstan. The harvest succeeded records. Kazakhstani wheat is considered as a benchmark in the whole world and demand on it is always more than volumes of its production. In other words, no matter how much crops are being produced on our fields, there is always a buyer for it. However, the crops weren’t harvested in a full scale. As always, during harvesting period prices on fuel had risen sharply, and massive of farmers just didn’t want to harvest its production in its disadvantage. Not many farmers could store harvested production, since both elevator and barn facilities haven’t enough storage space. And from what was stored, significant volumes weren’t sold because of lack of crop-carrying railcars. At that, on authorities’ papers everything looks fine – fuel sold for lowered prices and plenty of elevators and railcars.

Even in territorial terms the authorities are living separately from the rest of the country by many things. Their city is Astana. Not only employees of ministries and city halls can be reckoned among authorities, but officers of state owned holdings and national (state) companies. Even specialist couldn’t find five differences between middle officer from ministry of power and mineral resources and similar employee of KazMunaiGaz. All of them are living in somewhat paradigm of relations and reproducing a specific environment around them. For instance, in this environment all of impulses are going from top to bottom, whereas in the country conventional direction is from bottom to top (thus from common people to the government). For purpose to gather unsanctioned protest action, the opposition is bounded to get people from Almaty.

And the situation is more and more worsening. Nowadays the authorities are out of practice to solve technological problems (transport, postal services, electricity and water supply), which during 30’s of 20’s century were solved here in Kazakhstan by advanceв international levels. As an illustration: there is only one boy in the country suffering from severe form of hemophilia, and all the ministry of public health together with city hall of his residency place for years can’t solve the problem for him with life-and-death pharmaceuticals.

Our law-enforcement and supervisor agencies deserve a special chapter. All of these – Defense Ministry, CNS, MIA, prosecutor offices, Financial Police (oh, this FinPol…), courts, correctional facilities – are making people suffer no less than from other structures. We wouldn’t give any examples as they will take too much place. We will tell only one thing – all of security officials are corrupted, but the more terrible thing is that they put professional skills on payroll of their own greed. And in this case it is even more terrible than deprofessionalization.

There is a Persian parable: dying wealthy father invited his young and only son and heir. Told him that he demising him everything he gave permission to sell all of his lands, but not to sell the house in any possible case. Whether if he will waste everything, then in a special room there is a beam with rope winded around and a bench – let he climb on it and hang himself better than live in a poverty. As parent supposed, his son wasted every coin in company of dissolute idlers, and time came to hang. But the beam was broken under his weight, and ten thousand dinars dropped out of it. Careful father had foreseen everything. And his son understood the price for the money and lived his following life moderately.

It is time to bring our state management system to normal condition. The more the “gold in a beam” in form of natural resources is still here, and global prices on it are restoring. It is time to implement electivity of mayors of all levels, since the authorities which don’t care about quality of state management in front of the people showed their total inability to care about everything at all. Yet akims changing among themselves and minions of trenchermen accompanying them were successful only in terms of corporate raids on new territories under their control. Otherwise, as elders of soviet, almost fairytale, era said, “there aren’t any irreplaceable persons”. Among all executive vertical.