The Senate held parliamentary hearings on water security of Kazakhstan, which were prepared by the Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Security.
Chairman of the Committee Mukhtar Kul-Mohammed, addressing his colleagues, noted that the Committee chaired by Dariga Nursultanovna for two years raised this issue at its meetings. “The government has been given a number of recommendations, but we do not see a complete solution to these issues,” he said.
At the parliamentary hearings, it was said that the main threats in the field of water supply are pollution of water reserves, wear of hydraulic structures, corruption and non-compliance with construction standards, dependence on transboundary rivers, imperfection of water resources management systems and quality control, inefficient implementation of state programs on drinking water.
Speaking at the hearing, Senator Kairat Kozhamzharov stressed that 1.2 trillion tenge was spent from the budget on the programs “Ak Bulak”, “Drinking water”, but still 51% of rural settlements do not have access to clean drinking water. This is almost 2.5 million people, or 13% of our population. The Senator suggested the Government to tighten control over the target development of allocated budget funds.
According to the Chairman of the Accounts Committee Natalia Godunova, the results of the state audit of budget spending by the Committee on Water Resources show 2.5 billion tenge of financial violations, 26.3 billion tenge of inefficient planning and use of state resources, 189 procedural violations.
In his speech, Director of the Institute of Geography of Kazakhstan Akhmetkal Medeu noted that it is necessary to tighten the law in relation to the owners of dams. They get all the profits without investing in their possessions, and the consequences after emergencies are eliminated by the state.
His colleague, Director of the Institute of Hydrogeology and Geoecology Akhmedsafin Malis Absametov raised the issue of acute shortage of qualified personnel capable to lead the design, construction and maintenance work on water facilities.
Summing up the results of the parliamentary hearings, D. Nazarbayeva made a special emphasis on the fact that the state needs a program for the conservation of water resources. The study of this problem should become a priority for scientific institutions of the country, especially in terms of the use of water-saving technologies, the potential to attract investments that could reduce the burden on the budget.
Also, the Chairman of the Senate proposed to create a state body that would be responsible only for water security issues.
“At the first two hearings on water security, we said in the recommendations that a separate authorized body is needed, which will deal only with water, only with water security. We do not remove this issue from the agenda. I do not know in what form this state body will work – an agency or a specialized organization, but it should be a separate structure that is responsible only for these issues, bears responsibility for them and is responsible for its actions,” D. Nazarbayeva said.
As a result of the parliamentary hearings, the Senate deputies prepared recommendations that will be sent to the Government.
