Nearly 7 billion tenge ineffectively planned for Astana's digitalization returned to the budget

About 6.88 billion tenge was returned to the budget, and another 695.5 million tenge was reallocated to other expenses. According to BES.media, the audit identified 11 instances for which administrative liability is provided.

The essence in brief

• The ineffectively planned 7.57 billion tenge consists of 1.35 billion under the program for compensating costs for public-private partnership (PPP) projects and 6.22 billion under the innovation development program.
• Auditors cite insufficiently justified budgeting at the drafting stage as the cause: projects were postponed, some services duplicated existing ones, and contracts were terminated.
• In 2024, the department abandoned ten projects and returned 1.73 billion tenge.
• Some indicators in the department's reporting did not match the actual data.

What was checked and what was found

The audit covered the expenses of the digitalization department of the Astana akimat over three years. Under the program for compensating investment and operating costs for PPP projects, the budget in 2023 was reduced by 1.35 billion tenge: the money was intended for a photo and video recording and video analytics project. Under the program "Services for Ensuring the Development of Innovation Activity," ineffective planning amounted to 6.22 billion tenge: 3.76 billion in 2024 and 2.46 billion in 2025.

According to the conclusions of the audit commission, funds were released after public procurement, projects were postponed, and for some there was insufficient technical readiness or additional analysis was required. Some new services duplicated existing ones, some measures were canceled, and certain contracts were terminated due to problems with suppliers. Auditors noted that similar planning violations had been identified before.

Which projects were abandoned

In the autumn of 2024, the department returned 1.73 billion tenge planned for ten projects. Among them were video analytics on existing cameras in state educational organizations (440 million tenge; it was decided to implement the project through PPP), a "data lake" (389.6 million tenge; there was a risk of not completing it with quality on time), and support for the photo and video recording project (365.1 million tenge). They also abandoned the Geoportal of Land Relations (150 million tenge), since a comprehensive geoportal is already being implemented by the architecture department, and the digitalization of residential areas (111 million tenge), whose basic functionality was transferred to the Astana.kz portal.

What did not match in the reporting

The audit commission found discrepancies between the stated and actual indicators. The department reported 200,000 applications for utility services; according to the portal, there were 214,318. It reported 195 technical inspections, while 200 were actually conducted. It reported 1,000 video surveillance cameras, while the contract provided for 1,200. The commission's conclusion: the department reflected the implementation of certain indicators incompletely and inaccurately.

What was decided based on the audit results

11 instances for administrative liability were identified: seven materials were sent to the Department of Internal State Audit, and four were reviewed by the audit commission itself. The digitalization department was instructed to apply disciplinary sanctions to the guilty employees by October 23, 2026. The response of the akimat or the department is not provided in the published material.

Author's conclusion

Most of the ineffectively planned funds were returned to the budget, but the auditors' complaint concerns the planning itself: budgets were set without sufficient justification and revised only after approval. The nearest reference point is the deadline of October 23, by which the department must apply disciplinary sanctions.