Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan urged to make public the names of officials who "strangle" business by unjustified inspections

At an enlarged meeting of the board at the General Prosecutor's Office, chaired by the Attorney General of Kazakhstan Asanov Zhakip were discussed the preliminary results of the execution of the Road Map on implementation of the recommendations by the results of the forum "The supervision of public prosecution in the field of entrepreneurship", which was held in June of this year, at the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The Chairman of the Board of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan "Atameken" Ablay Myrzakhmetov, the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan Bolat Palymbetov, the Chairman of the Council for the protection of the rights of entrepreneurs NCE RK Gani Kasymov, Deputy Chairman of NCE RK, MPs of RK, representatives of the Party "Nur Otan", the Supreme Court, Administration of the President, state bodies attended the expanded board meeting at the Prosecutor General's Office.

According to Deputy Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan Marat Akhmetzhanov, Prosecutor General's Office has achieved a significant reduction in pressure on business in the field of criminal justice. According to him, a number of measures was adopted, without adjusting the laws, the burden on business was reduced in the field of criminal justice.

"The first – we banned State Revenue authorities to initiate messages in the book of the account information without evidence of a crime. This significantly reduced the instances of businesses’ involvement in criminal proceedings. The second - the order of the Attorney General changed the registration rules in the book of the account information, the Unified Register of pre-trial investigation. It is forbidden now to register criminal cases when there is no information on the damage, there is no act of inspection or if it is purely civil matter. Third - we ordered without registration in the Unified Register of pre-trial investigation to send messages, where there is no obvious sign of a crime for consideration to the competent authorities (on a general basis in order established by part 5 of Article 181 CL). If there is no proven guilt - to write off without consideration.

"We have covered almost all the sensitive business issues, ranging from inspections and ending to lawsuits. We involved all the structural units, attracted 12 central state agencies to develop a road map with 114 specific measures within 5 main areas. When starting a project, we are talking about reducing the checks that we have managed to reduce 4 times. However, the pressure on business is maintained", - said Deputy Prosecutor General Marat Akhmetzhanov, reporting on the results of implementation of the Roadmap.

Authorities tried to find out why business is still "strangle" by inspections and identified three main reasons.

«First. Poor risk management system. In other words, there is no clear intelligence, what kind of a company and when it should be inspected. Moreover, state authorities put in their checklists a lot of useless, obsolete requirements for business. Some are absurd and have no logic. For example, the health rules for caterers require that facilities for the preparation of cold dishes should be located just on north-west side. Or a ridiculous ban to sell cakes by slices. We have so many of these norms that the businessman has nowhere to go to, an entrepreneur will still be guilty", - concluded the deputy prosecutor general.

To find out what rules hinder business at the web-sites of the Prosecutor General’s Office, NCE RK "Atameken" and the party "Nur Otan" was placed a special form. However, within two months 15 posts were received.

As it was stated by Akhmetzhanov, they started work with consumer protection bodies. "There are more than 8 thousand requirements. By the end of the year we plan to reduce them by a third. This work will be carried out in all areas of state control", - he said.

The second reason for the pressure on the business - there are no clear criteria for unscheduled inspections. As it turned out, half of them - by appeals. "Consumer complaints account only for one-third. 37% - initiators are the state bodies, the remaining 36% - appeals of those, whose rights are not affected by the activities of business. It can be concluded that the state control is used to eliminate any competition, or to put pressure on business. State bodies even create their LLPs to monitor businesses for their subsequent verification", - said the deputy head of the supervisory authority. In this regard, the Prosecutor General proposes to reduce the base for inspection, including a ban to conduct inspections by application of third parties.

Meanwhile, according to the Attorney General of Kazakhstan Zhakip Asanov, it is necessary to dismiss state officials for illegal inspections of business, and it can serve as a lesson for others. He also added that in respect of each officer should be initiated disciplinary proceedings, no matter what position they hold. Moreover, the Attorney General said that the next time you need to make public the names of officials, who responsible for the unjustified inspections of business.

Prosecutor General's Office continues to monitor the practice and the provision of public services. As it was noted by the deputy head of the supervisory authority, an audit of the two ministries have identified more than 200 violations (this is the delays, unjustified refusal to render a state service, claim of unnecessary documents, etc.) "Currently the proposals on how to reduce deadlines, to minimize the required documents are worked on. By the end of the year we think to realize it", - said Marat Akhmetzhanov.

The most painful issue according to the deputy prosecutor is involvement of business in criminal proceedings. A detailed study of the situation revealed three reasons. So, under the new Code of Criminal Procedure, there are no pre-investigation checks, all applications are recorded and immediately starts the investigation from that very moment. But this does not take into account the specifics of the investigation of economic crimes.

The second reason for involvement of business in the criminal proceedings, according to Akhmetzhanov, is the problem of article of the Criminal Code on pseudo-entrepreneurship. According to him, the use of the article of the Criminal Code on pseudo-entrepreneurship causes big problems. "This year, almost 40% of criminal cases were considered by the courts in the conciliation proceedings. This approach greatly simplifies the process of proof, but it causes the biggest number of complaints. To make a deal, it is enough to admit guilt at any stage of the process, and the damage from the activities of pseudo enterprises and involvement of contractors is not checked. Contractors are not even aware that their fate has been decided, and after the sentence comes into force, they are automatically subject to taxes", - said Deputy Prosecutor General of the Republic of Kazakhstan Marat Akhmetzhanov. The deputy head of the supervisory authority said that "there is an opinion - to decriminalize the act and to attract only for tax evasion. Someone offers to prosecute only for the creation of a pseudo-enterprise. All proposals are now studied by the inter-ministerial group on improving the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code.

According to the representative of the GP, for tax assessments should be sufficient the act of an inspection without judgment or court decision on cancellation of state registration of a pseudo enterprise. But these legal acts are required in accordance with the Tax Code.

In this regard, the Prosecutor General proposes to start reform of the tax administration. "As in the US and England, to introduce the principle of "substance over form", that is to give the taxman the right to determine fictitious transactions without trial", - commented M. Akhmetzhanov.

The representative GP also added that another mechanism of protection will be the appeal committee on tax and customs disputes. "Atameken" and the State Revenue Committee have prepared the relevant amendments to the Tax and Entrepreneurial Codes", - he said.