The functions of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which regulate the activity of entrepreneurs in the sphere of municipal waste management, will shift to self-regulation

On 7^th of August a selectoral meeting on issues related to expert activities and transferring the functions of state bodies to a competitive environment and to self-regulatory organizations was held at Atameken under the chairmanship of Aizhan Bizhanova, Director of the Department of Legislation and Development of Self-Regulation of NCE RK "Atameken". Representatives of central and local executive bodies, RCE, accredited associations, as well as business entities took an active part in the event. The agenda included the following issues:

• Improvement of the expert activity of NCE RK "Atameken";
• Discussion of the 3-group functions transferred to the competitive environment and to self-regulatory organizations;
• Advisability of introducing self-regulation in the field of management of municipal waste;
• Consideration of the issue on the development of the industry for the processing of solid minerals within the framework of the Concept to the draft law "On introducing changes and amendments to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the regulation of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances."

"In general, it is necessary to note the importance of the expert activities carried out by RCE, in view of the strengthening and expansion of the competence of local executive bodies in regulating business activities, including through rulemaking. In addition, Regional Chambers of Entrepreneurs account for half of all draft normative legal acts that are submitted for examination to the National Parliament, which requires special professional attention from the staff of RCE", - said Aizhan Bizhanova.

During the meeting, the issues related to the improvement of the expert activity of RCE were also considered, including the need to increase the involvement of business entities in the evaluation of innovations proposed by local executive and representative bodies.

Also, business entities were informed about the creation of the third group of functions proposed for transfer to a competitive environment and SRO.

"Currently, Atameken is working to collect initiative proposals from business entities on the implementation of government functions in the medium term. Based on the results of this work, the third group of functions proposed for transfer to a competitive environment and self-regulatory organizations will be formed", - noted the Managing Director, the Director of the Department for Legislation and the Development of Self-Regulation.

"Functions of LEB deserve special attention. So, based on the results of a large-scale inventory carried out last year, it was established that central and local bodies are carrying out about 15,000 functions, 12,000 of which are in the regions, that is, 800 each. Despite the fact that they are typical, their implementation in each Region is carried out in different ways. Akimats set different goals and indicators of the quality for the implementation of functions, allocate different budgets. Whereas functions are implemented by the employees of the akimat, where they are subordinate organizations, despite the presence of a competitive environment. The work on the implementation of the 97 Step of the Nation Plan will allow us to optimize the state apparatus, concentrate government attention on the implementation of strategically important management tasks, increase the competitiveness of our entrepreneurs, improve the quality of services provided to the population (consumers) ", - added Aizhan Bizhanova.

It was proposed at the meeting to consider the transfer of 7 functions of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of management of municipal waste to SRO. At the same time, the interested subjects of entrepreneurship have sounded some problematic issues related to their activities, and expressed the hope of resolving such issues when introducing the institution of self-regulation.

"The General Prosecutor's Office conducted a raid in Astana and identified a large number of spontaneous landfills. Enterprise entering into a contract for the export of garbage takes away the responsibility of controlling its further route. Will self-regulation solve this issue? We can’t control all small enterprises, to see whether they do their work in good faith", - the representative of the Ministry of Energy said. As a result of the meeting, the Managing Director and Director of the Department for Legislation and Development of Self-Regulation "Atameken" announced further measures to introduce SROs in the field of solid waste management and gave concrete proposals on eliminating existing problems in this sector.

During the meeting some provisions of the Concept to the draft law "On introducing changes and amendments to some legislative acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the regulation of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances" were discussed. In particular, the proposal of the Ministry “to impose administrative responsibility of individuals and legal entities for not signing an agreement on garbage collection” and “for non-payment” was not supported by the National Chamber and business representatives, due to the need to resolve such disputes between entities in a civil law order. There was no support among the subjects for the developer's proposal to impose responsibility of waste owners for their transfer to unscrupulous contractors. This issue will be resolved when introducing self-regulation based on mandatory membership in the sphere of solid waste management. In this regard, the meeting participants agreed on the need to consider the issue of introducing self-regulation in the field of municipal waste management in the framework of this Concept.

"At the end of today's meeting, the relevant protocols will be drawn, which will be sent to the participants of the meeting in the near future. I also ask all the regional chambers during the next week to submit statistical data on the number of subjects in the sphere of solid waste circulation for the subsequent conduct of the analysis of the regulatory impact by the National Chamber and the Ministry of Energy", - Aizhan Bizhanova concluded.

In May 2016, the law "On Self-Regulation" came into force.