The Week in Kazakhstan: Rank and Jail

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed into law on June 30 a bill that bans face-covering clothing in public places. Lawmakers argued that certain clothing items could hamper facial recognition and pose a security threat. While not specifically addressing religious headwear, the measure is likely to affect women wearing niqab or burqa in public. Kazakhstan is the latest Central Asian country to pass such law, following Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

On June 30, Tokayev appointed Nurlan Sauranbayev, the former head of Kazakhstan Railways, to the top job at the ministry of transport, which had been vacant for about a month. Sauranbayev’s former deputy Talgat Aldybergenov was promoted to head Kazakhstan Railways.

Ruslan Zhaksylykov was appointed deputy secretary of the Security Council on June 30. Weeks earlier Tokayev had fired him from his post as minister of defense.

Energy & Mining

Kazakhstan’s ministry of energy said it halted a $3.5 billion gas processing plant project on July 2, as disagreements with foreign companies had not been resolved. The plant, scheduled to be built this year near the gas field of Karachaganak, could now be built by other companies, the ministry said. In mid-May, the ministry froze the project amid disputes with Italy’s Eni and London-based Shell, the leaders of the Netherlands-based Karachaganak Petroleum Operating consortium that was poised to build the plant.

Crude oil output soared to 1.88 million barrels per day (bpd) in Kazakhstan in June, a 7.5% increase compared to the previous month and an all-time record, Reuters reported on July 1. The volumes, once again, surpassed the 1.5 million bpd quota that the group of exporting countries OPEC+ had asked Kazakhstan to abide by. The Tengiz field, the largest contributor to the country’s oil output, has recently completed a massive expansion project and plans to continue growing its production.

A Netherlands-based subsidiary of China’s Sinopec said it started drilling operations at an oil field in the western Mangistau region on July 2. Sinopec had won the rights to explore the Say-Utes field in late 2022 and said it would spend around $9 million in its first deep drilling attempt. The field is operated by the Korea National Oil Corporation, with which Sinopec has had an upstream exploration deal since 2009.

Zijin Mining Group, China’s largest gold producer, bought a major gold mine in Kazakhstan on July 1. The Raygorodok gold mine had been exploited by the RG Gold company, in which Bulat Utemuratov, one of Kazakhstan’s richest men, indirectly controls a 65% stake. The deal, worth $1.2 billion, marks Zijin’s first acquisition in Kazakhstan and comes ahead of a planned listing on Hong Kong’s stock exchange.

Kazatomprom, the flagship uranium miner, said on July 4 that it had completed construction work at a uranium processing facility near the Yuzhny Tortkuduk mine, in the southern region of Turkistan. Kazatomprom is exploiting the Yuzhny Tortkuduk mine together with France’s Orano through their joint venture Katco.

The Supreme Audit Chamber said on July 2 that a number of companies in the electric power industry had “inefficiently used” funds and assets worth 107 billion tenge ($200 million). Managers at renewable energy companies, as well as grid and administrative state enterprises, were accused of a range of violations.

Money Matters

Around 925,000 people (4.5% of the population) in Kazakhstan live below subsistence levels, a study by Finprom.kz published on July 3 said. The figure concerns the first quarter of 2025 and showed a slight decrease compared to the previous quarter.

Annual inflation in June accelerated to 11.8%, the Statistics Committee said on July 1. This marks the highest inflation rate for the past two years.

The Supreme Audit Chamber said on July 3 that new budget rules will force state-owned companies to return unused funds to the budget. The government agency said this measure will reduce the risk of wasteful use of resources, as well as enhance transparency.

Kazakhstan’s Central Bank head Timur Suleimenov said he welcomed a proposal to create a state reserve of cryptocurrency in the country. In a response to Parliament reported by Kazinform on June 30, Suleimenov said this measure would make transactions more transparent and discourage shadow transactions. Suleimenov also said that the reserve would be made of confiscated digital assets and state-mined cryptocurrencies. The reserve would be centralized and tightly controlled by the regulator, in stark contrast with the principles behind the emergence of most cryptocurrencies.

Corruption & Embezzlement

A June 30 decree reorganized Kazakhstan’s Anti-Corruption Service and merged the agency into the National Security Committee (KNB). While the change does not imply a policy change, it streamlines the work of the anti-corruption service and centralizes its operations under the all-powerful KNB.

Former minister of justice Marat Beketayev was sentenced on June 30 to nine years in prison, the Anti-Corruption Service said. Beketayev was accused of fraud and theft during his time at the ministry, from 2016 to 2022, and arrested in October 2023. Bolashak Consulting Group, a company affiliated with him, benefited from inflated contracts for “unnecessary services.” Bolashak was in particular contracted to aid Kazakhstan’s government in its dispute against Moldovan businessmen Gabriel and Anatol Stati, which was ultimately resolved last year.

On the same day, the Anti-Corruption Service also said that Anuar Abenov, the head of the Privatization Agency of the Almaty region, had been put in pre-trial detention on suspicion of fraud.

Talgat Tatubayev, the former head of the Anti-Corruption Service, was arrested and put in pre-trial detention, the General Prosecutor’s Office reported on July 4. He is said to be an associate of former General Prosecutor Kairat Kozhamzharov, who left his post in 2019 – just as former President Nursultan Nazarbayev resigned – to become a senator. The case against Tatubayev, who is accused of torture, could be related to a long-standing cross-border smuggling and corruption case and an unresolved murder in 2012.

Karim Kokrekbayev, the former governor of the southern Zhambyl region and head of a government rural monitoring agency, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for bribery. On July 3, a court in the Almaty region found him guilty of accepting two bribes worth respectively $798,000 and $44,000, causing a $3 million damage to the state budget. Kokrekbayev was arrested in December 2022. He was sentenced alongside his former deputy and a contractor.

Majilis deputies Bakytzhan Bazarbek and Murat Abenov asked on July 3 that the Prosecutor General's Office conduct a large-scale investigation on the activities of state-owned pharmaceutical distributor SK-Pharmacy. The deputies suspect that the company’s “poor planning” led to significant losses for the budget. On the same day, the ministry of health appointed Nurlybek Asylbekov as the new head of SK-Pharmacy.

The ministry of labor confirmed on July 1 that the head of the Center for Human Resources Development Akmadi Sarbasov and his predecessor Daulet Argandykov had been detained on suspicion of abuse of office and corruption. The top managers at the Center, under the ministry of labor, allegedly sold classified personal data to the credit rating organization First Credit Bureau. Ruslan Omarov, chairman of First Credit, was also reportedly detained.