Investigation
Seven years, no generals: the Public Integrity Commission
Since 2014 the Governor’s anti-corruption commission has brought 212 cases. Not one has reached an official above deputy head of department.
From the Irad Times of 4 November 2021.
The Public Integrity Commission was set up in the Governor’s office in 2014 to fight corruption “at every level”. The Times has gone through every case it has announced since, 212 in all, using its own press releases and the records of the Talas and Nurzhan district courts.
The commission has prosecuted 141 police officers, customs clerks and checkpoint staff, 38 teachers and school directors, 19 municipal officials, 9 doctors and 5 employees of state companies. The most senior person it has charged was a deputy head of department at the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2017, over feed subsidies worth 400,000 som. He received a suspended sentence.
It has never charged a minister, a deputy minister, a general, a member of the Mejlis or the director of a state company. It has never investigated a contract at Talas Air Base, the auctions of 2008, or the companies that own Talasbank.
“Prevention, not prosecution”
The commission’s chairman, in a written reply, said its work was “prevention, not prosecution” and that falling numbers of complaints at checkpoints showed it was succeeding. He said senior officials were “subject to the same law as everyone else”.
Asked whether any senior official had ever been investigated, he said investigations were confidential.
The commission’s budget is set by the Governor’s office, and it reports to the Governor. Its staff are seconded from the Ministry of Internal Security. In seven years, it has held one press conference.
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