The Head of NCE proposes the thorough study of the law

Speaking at a forum at the General Prosecutor's Office dedicated to the protection of entrepreneurs' rights, the Chairman of the Presidium of NCE RK "Atameken" Kulibayev said that countless number of auditors interferes with the activities of the businesses.

"There are 61 controlling bodies in the country! Can small and medium-sized businesses afford to have so much employees to discuss all questions with these state authorities? Some audits have 8000 positions that an entrepreneur must keep under control. 54 thousand audits of entrepreneurs were conducted last year", - said the head of the Presidium of NCE RK.

Without denying that these audits were carried out lawfully, Timur Kulibayev stated that it is necessary to analyze the functions and powers of state bodies at the legislative level.

"If they are excessive, they should be revised. We need to give entrepreneurs the opportunity to engage in their main activity, entrepreneurship, to produce goods and services, and not spend time on various auditing organizations", - said the head of the Presidium of NCE RK.

Timur Kulibayev said that in 2011, in conjunction with government agencies had been done considerable work on the reduction of permits, the number of which was 1115 at that time. The result was the adoption of the law on permits and notifications, which included a total of 481 permits. "We have continued this work and today there are only 310 permits. That is two-thirds of permits were excessive", - concluded the head of the Presidium of NCE RK "Atameken".

According to him, the excessive number of permits and inspections creates the potential for corruption. "If they do not have legal grounds to come with audits, to make demand from businesses, the possibility of unjustified claims to bona fide entrepreneurs decreases", - he said.

In this regard, the chairman of the Presidium of NCE offered to carry out anti-corruption expertise of legislation at the legislative level. At one time it was cancelled, allegedly due to poor performance. Now Timur Kulibayev offers involving public institutions and political parties to restore the anti-corruption expertise of draft laws, decrees and other legal acts. "Now NCE and its regional directorates have all the resources to organize systemic issues and, together with the Ministry of Justice and other government agencies to submit proposals to Parliament on the reduction of unnecessary control and supervision functions of the state bodies", - said Timur Kulibayev. Moreover, in his opinion, not only retrospective expertise of legislation should be carried out, but also expertise of new RLAs on anti-corruption component, and then domestic entrepreneurs, will be able to get back to business, believes the head of the Presidium of NCE RK.

The basis for the examination of legislation can be a cooperation agreement, which was signed between the Ministry of Civil Service Affairs of Kazakhstan and the National Chamber.

"We have agreed to take part in the meetings of the working groups, advisory bodies, created under the Ministry and the National Chamber, at the Ethics Councils of the Ministry in the regions. We plan to carry out anti-corruption monitoring, to identify the causes and conditions conducive to corruption offenses in the activities of organizations, both at the central and regional levels ", - said Timur Kulibayev.

Chairman of the Presidium of NCE also noted that business has many questions regarding tax audits. Recognizing the legitimacy of actions of the tax authorities, Timur Kulibayev said that "the entrepreneur must also be protected".

In this regard, the head of the Presidium of NCE RK "Atameken" proposed to establish under the Ministry of Finance an appellate body (commission) on review of complaints on tax and customs issues with the participation of independent experts. According to him, appeals of entrepreneurs should be considered in the pretrial order.

Timur Kulibayev also spoke about the responsibility of state employees, whose illegal actions prevent doing business. "None of the civil servants has been brought to any responsibility. But if we talk about the business climate, if the damage was caused to an entrepreneur, it must be compensated. "We need to increase the responsibility of public officials for undue interference in business activities. Every entrepreneur must be sure that the negligent government officials will be punished for their illegal actions, which brought damage to an entrepreneur. This issue should be under the scrutiny of the prosecutor’s office", - said Timur Kulibayev.

The head of the Presidium of NCE RK noted the positive experience of joint work of the prosecutor’s office and NCE, proposed to develop a new model plan for the second half of this year, with its adoption at the regional level.

"High-quality work was carried out within each direction, an open dialogue was conducted with the business, employees of the Chamber and prosecutor’s office carried out a joint inspection and analysis in relation to government agencies. I believe that the practice of joint activities on the basis of work plans should be resumed", - summed Timur Kulibayev.