The Committee of Veterinary Control of MoA RK obliged seven Kazakhstani companies to replace previously sold vaccine and to recognize entrepreneurs as bad-faith party to a public procurement transaction.

The problem was considered within council meeting of Entrepreneur Protection Board and Anti-Corruption Commission at the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs "Atameken".

The issue was brought up to the NCE RK by the Chairman of the Republican Association of Veterinary and Nutrition Security Nurlan Tugambayev. He said that in 2016, seven enterprises had delivered large batch of rabies vaccines through Government procurement. However, the Veterinary Control Committee decided to make a quality check after ... nine (!) months from the date of delivery and three months after the expiration of the contracts. Which is to say, when vaccines have already been sent to the regions and its majority was actually used.

“As far as we work in the WTO, according to international agreements all the preparations are supplied with a certificate. Nevertheless, they check quality after nine months and file a lawsuit in court on the basis of the low quality of goods. They demand entrepreneurs to replace the entire batch. And they amount millions. Sorry, but how are they supposed to replace it? They will go bankrupt,” – Nurlan Turgambayev asks.

For example, Vetbiofarm LLP supplied vaccines on 98 million tenge, which means more than 1 million doses. According to the court decision, he must replace it. The Committee explains the lack of vaccine quality bynidus of animal infection. However, according to Turgambayev, the officials failed to prove this fact in court.

“Rabies is vaccinated to 2-5 percent of livestock. But there are corsacs and other wild animals in this nidus. And when they were asked in court if a particular cow got sick exactly from a poor-quality vaccine, they could not answer. Although they have an inventory list with all the vaccine they did, and animal passports as well. But the representatives of the Committee said that they didn’t have anything like that on their hands,” - the speaker says.

As it was said at the Council, it is written in the Order of the Minister of Agriculture, that veterinary drugs administration is allowed only after positive study outcomes. That means the officials of the Committee themselves violated rules, as they allowed the treatment of so-called poor-quality vaccine.

“Moreover, it turned out during the proceeding that KazRIVI LLP, which conducted the trial, hadn't even had the appropriate accreditation in defining the indicator of immunogenic activity at that time,” said the Council member and Majilis deputy Aigul Solovyeva.

The Board members are convinced that the fact that the vaccines quality control was conducted for Committee by company, that didn’t not meet the requirements, should be regarded as a corruption offense.

An effort to hear the position of the Veterinary Control Committee was failed. Representatives of the government agencies had not appeared at the meeting, although they had been officially notified about it..

Curious about this story is the position of the court. The Specialized Inter-Regional Economic Court of Astana and the Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the Capital refused to satisfy the claims of the Committee. Nevertheless the Supreme Court recognized entrepreneurs as bad-faith party to a public procurement transaction. For two more companies, the final decisions have not been made yet.

“These drugs have proven their effectiveness over the years. As it seems to me, these proceedings, roughly speaking, reveal that the Committee did not receive some kind of “kickback” in person, which was stipulated in the process of the concluding the treaty. Within the context, it is necessary to recommend the NCE RK to investigate corruption. We have precedents when crimes, committed by officials even more than 10 years ago, were revealed and the guilty persons were punished,” - Council member, member of the Majilis of the Parliament Kenes Absatirov, said.

Business Ombudsman of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bolat Palymbetov expressed doubts about the advisability of subsequent work of The Committee of Veterinary Controls .

“We need to look deeper into what the Committee is meant to be doing. Maybe there is a crowd of people engaged only in procurement activities. You are professionals, let's make an offer. Maybe it makes sense to make the Department at the Ministry of Agriculture? Why do we need a system with machines and debts, if they are engaged in such a nonessential function. I suggest to you, as to professionals, to look deeper into this question,” – Bolat Palymbetov offers.

 

Summing up, Kairbek Suleimenov, the Chairman of the Board for the Protection of Entrepreneurs and Anti-Corruption Commission at the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs "Atameken", noted that taking into account the decision of the Supreme Court, it will be hard to help entrepreneurs with this problem.

“The committee behaved in a bad faith. However, don't be afraid. Officials are hiding, avoid meetings. But I ask you to describe in any detail this problem and the situation with government agencies, when we transmit documents on this case. It should be recommended to the General Prosecutor's Office to analyze the activity of this department during public procurement,” – Kairbek Suleymenov said.

He also noted that he had previously sent an official letter to the Minister of Agriculture, had already talked to the First Deputy Minister, as the result the leadership of the Veterinary Control and Supervision Committee had been requested to participate in the meeting. But they hadn’t shown up.

As far as the draft law to amend the Law on Public Procurement was under consideration by the Parliament, Kairbek Suleymenov asked deputies and members of the Council to take into account the current negative procurement practices of the Committee in order to prevent recurrence of similar situations in the future.