Regions fall behind schedule of "100 schools and 100 hospitals" program

Astana, 16 September 2008, (Khabar) - The results of the first year of the "100 schools and 100 hospitals" program are threatened with complete failure as a corresponding statements were made by the Ministers for Healthcare and Education speaking at a government meeting. Territorial heads, which are responsible for the implementation of the project, refer to the central
bodies saying that they slow some processes down.

Around 130 billion tenge
was allocated by the government this year for the construction of new and
modern hospitals and educational institutions. Some facilities were added to
a special program which was announced by the president and named "100
Schools and 100 Hospitals". However, while time goes by, almost no
significant results can be seen, according to the Ministers for Healthcare
and Education. Over 3 billion tenge has not been used yet in the sphere of
education, which means in some regions the scheduled construction of schools
did not even start.

Zhanseit Tuimebayev, Minister for Education and Science of RK:
- The construction of a vocational school in Astana was stopped in May this
year while the term of commissioning is December 2008. So we have only done
zero-cycle activities.

At the beginning of September, the Ministries checked the Zhambyl, South
Kazakhstan, and Kyzylorda regions as well as Astana but the final results
did not match with the data provided by local heads. In southern Kazakhstan,
authorities drug out the commissioning of 7 educational institutions while
the constructed facilities in the Zhambyl region did not meet quality
standards. The situation regarding hospitals is almost the same.

Anatoly Dernovoi, Minister for Health of RK:
- Construction of an out-patient clinic and two regional hospitals has not
been started yet in Uralsk. The blood center in Southern Kazakhstan and a
tuberculosis hospital in Atyrau are not being built.

All of the territorial heads took the floor immediately after the ministers
spoke.

Nurgali Ashimov, head of South Kazakhstan region:
- Dear Minister for Health, it is being built and it is scheduled to be
commissioned and it costs 305 million tenge.

Regional heads say that if some programs fall behind the schedule, there are
always some related reasons which do not depend on local authorities. For
instance, sometimes the money comes from the budget too late and the tender
procedures are too complicated to hold.

Sergei Kulagin, head of Kostanai region:
- We received the first amount of money on the 29th of July and the projects
came in the middle of the year. It requires 1.5 months to make everything
match and another 1.5 months to arrange a tender. We started working only in
August and it is too difficult to use all the 3 billion at once.

Karim Massimov gave the regional heads another month for them to improve the
situation. During this period, a special task force will travel to the
regions and will announce their conclusions as well.

Karim Massimov, Prime Minister of RK:
- As a result, we are not going to punish somebody because that is not the
aim. We need to implement the tasks set by the head of state. It is also
necessary to use all the money that is allocated and we should keep those
promises that we give to our people. Whenever some problems appear, there is
always somebody to blame for it.

The Prime Minister also questioned the deputy territorial heads who are in
charge of educational and healthcare projects. Concerning the outcomes of
the past 9 months, the regional heads' responsibility will be evaluated,
after which the head of the cabinet will report to the president on the
implementation of the program.