VZCZCXRO9792
RR RUEHAST RUEHDBU
DE RUEHTA #1153/01 0930143
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 030143Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY ALMATY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4707
INFO RUEHAST/USOFFICE ASTANA
RUEHAH/AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT 6936
RUEHKB/AMEMBASSY BAKU 0653
RUEHEK/AMEMBASSY BISHKEK 7475
RUEHDBU/AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE 1660
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 0156
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 1195
RUEHNT/AMEMBASSY TASHKENT 7446
RUEHVEN/USMISSION USOSCE 1542

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ALMATY 001153 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/CEN (JMUDGE); SCA/CEN/PPD (JBASEDOW), EB, DRL/PHD 
(CKUCHTA-HELBLING) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM ECON KDEM EINV KPAO PGOV KZ
SUBJECT: CORRUPTION, KAZAKHSTANI STYLE: "ROTTING FROM THE HEAD 
DOWN" 
 
Ref: Dushanbe 576 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: Corruption is rife in Kazakhstan, affecting all 
sectors from education to health care. Kazakhstani perceptions of 
the impact and acceptability of the various forms of corruption 
are nuanced.  While they are decidedly critical of the large- 
scale corruption found at the top levels of business and 
government, most Kazakhstanis accept "everyday" bribes and 
kickbacks as a necessary remedy to an overly bureaucratic system. 
Regardless of perceptions, the pervasive corruption throughout 
Kazakhstani society clearly weakens rule of law and diminishes 
the sense of civic responsibility. End Summary 
 
¶2. (SBU) The purpose of this cable is to provide anecdotal 
examples of corruption, along with other Central Asian embassies, 
as part of a coordinated reporting effort. Please see additional 
corruption pieces from Ashgabat, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Kabul and 
Tashkent. 
 
----------------------- 
THE SCOPE OF CORRUPTION 
----------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) As in other post Soviet states, corruption in Kazakhstan 
is not simply an isolated practice of the social elite, but 
rather a pervasive and socially ingrained phenomenon that affects 
all levels of society. In bribery, its most recognizable form, 
corruption is extensive, although the use of kickbacks, illicit 
exchange arrangements and extortion are also prevalent in 
Kazakhstan. Moreover, corruption extends into the law enforcement 
and judicial systems, health and dental care industries, 
regulation and permitting agencies, border and import/export 
control, and press and media outlets. 
 
------------------------------------- 
THE EVERYDAY EXPERIENCE OF CORRUPTION 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) The prototypical example of Kazakhstani corruption is 
seen everyday on the street, where local traffic police openly 
extort bribes from motorists. When caught speeding, making an 
illegal turn, running a red light, or committing some other minor 
traffic violation, the offending motorist is pulled over by one 
officer and typically asked to get in the police vehicle where a 
second officer is sitting.  After a short conversation, the 
driver will pass 200 to 500 tenge ($2-5) to the second officer 
with a handshake and be on his way. For more serious infractions 
such as drunk driving, the procedure is the same and the bribe is 
said to be between 10,000 and 25,000 tenge ($80-200). 
 
¶5. (SBU) Police have also been known to coerce bribes by working 
together to create confusing traffic situations.  For example, 
one individual recounted an experience where police sitting in 
their vehicle near an out-of-service traffic light appeared to be 
waving motorists to pass. Once they did so however, a second 
officer some distance away would stop them for having broken the 
law. When the indignant `offender' confronted the first officer, 
he claimed that he had merely been stretching his arm out the 
window. Accordingly, traffic police enjoy an extremely lucrative 
profession; the hiring process itself is subject to knowing, then 
bribing, the right people. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Kazakhstan's burgeoning car culture provides many other 
opportunities for exploitation. Without bribing the driving 
instructor, for example, prospective drivers are not likely to 
pass the driving exam. Even those who do pass without bribing 
then face up to a six month `processing' delay. Kazakhstani law 
also requires annual vehicle inspections, which few of the used 
Japanese and German imports that clog the streets are capable of 
passing legitimately. However, an additional 1,000 tenge ($8) 
"payment" alleviates the problem. The result is a plethora of 
highly polluting and sometimes dangerous vehicles on the streets. 
 
¶7. (SBU) As in Soviet times, the health care and dental 
professions remain substantially underpaid. Hence, locals 
regularly make use of gifts and bribes to ensure doctors' careful 
attention or to circumvent waiting lists. Various hospital 
services are also for sale. One local resident who suffered a 
 
ALMATY 00001153  002 OF 004 
 
 
serious, debilitating injury was informed by the hospital that he 
would be required to return to work within two days. Realizing 
that to be impossible, he had a close relative present the 
receptionist with a gift basket, and his hospital stay was 
extended by a week. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Kazakhstan's educational system is notoriously subject 
to corruption at all levels, particularly concerning admission to 
private schools and prestigious universities. In order to enroll 
her young nephew in a special elementary school, one local 
citizen took note of the director's casual remarks about the 
school's lack of learning materials. After a considerable 
donation of supplies to the school, her nephew was promptly 
admitted. University admission exams are also routinely sold 
prior to the exam period, for prices ranging from 1,000 to 15,000 
tenge ($8-130). The American-affiliated, business university 
KIMEP is a notable exception to the rule of institutional 
corruption in higher education and, not coincidentally, enjoys 
the best academic reputation in the country. However, even KIMEP 
is not completely immune to the problem; Americans working there 
report instances of bribery involving professors, students and 
occasionally heads of departments. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Beyond admission, everything from individual grades to 
full doctoral degrees is for sale, going for perhaps 1,000 tenge 
($8) for the former and upwards of 500,000 tenge ($4,000) for the 
latter. However, the outright purchase of a doctorate is much 
less common than bribing the supervising committee.  Everybody 
knows, one former student claimed, that without throwing a party 
for your advisors and showering them with gifts, your thesis has 
no chance of being approved, regardless of its academic merit. 
Additionally, unpaid student internships are reportedly auctioned 
off to companies for up to 150,000 tenge ($1200), none of which 
is passed along to the students. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Corruption is also manifest at nearly every stage of 
the government bureaucracy. When renewing passports, acquiring 
permits, bidding on contracts, renewing apartment leases and 
navigating the regulatory environment, Kazakhstani citizens are 
often presented with the option of either investing enormous 
amounts of time and effort in dealing with the inefficient 
bureaucracy, or simply bribing the appropriate person. Moreover, 
making the bureaucracy un-navigable or exacerbating its existing 
inefficiencies is an effective way of implicitly soliciting 
kickbacks. Consequently, Kazakhstanis complain that self-serving 
bureaucrats often deliberately hold up paperwork, shorten office 
hours, or withhold information so that something as simple as 
renewing a passport can take several months without a bribe. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Corruption is especially acute in customs and border 
control, often described as the most corrupt sector in 
Kazakhstan. Travelers crossing regional borders by car are often 
hassled with ad hoc customs restrictions until a small bribe or 
gift is produced. On a much larger scale, however, mass 
quantities of goods from China are regularly smuggled into to 
Kazakhstan with the help of border officials. In a recent, highly 
publicized case, a group of border control officers were caught 
extorting up to $4000 from each truck carrying smuggled Chinese 
goods into Kazakhstan, collecting between $3-4 million in bribes 
a month at a single outpost. 
 
¶12. (SBU) In addition to goods, migrants are often shuffled 
illegally across borders for a fee - such as prostitutes from 
Tashkent or laborers from Tajikistan - as Kazakhstan offers one 
of the most profitable working environments in Central Asia. One 
Kyrgyz student from KIMEP did not mind skipping classes because, 
he said, his brother works as a border guard, which guarantees 
him a job that pays more than any legitimate one he might obtain. 
 
¶13. (SBU) The legal structure is widely perceived to be corrupt 
and politically influenced. Despite being the highest paid civil 
servants in the country, judges are widely viewed as corrupt.  A 
law establishing a jury trial system has been passed, but awaits 
implementation. Nevertheless, even under the new law, jury trials 
will be available in only the most serious criminal cases, while 
in civil and minor criminal cases lawyers will continue to act as 
the intermediary between clients and judges. Overall, 
Kazakhstanis see the process, on the whole, as rife with 
 
ALMATY 00001153  003 OF 004 
 
 
corruption, and express little faith in the rule of law. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Finally, nearly all informed observers doubted the 
existence of a truly objective press in Kazakhstan. Instead, 
Kazakhstanis often feel that few media outlets or journalists 
remain unbiased, and that they are either working directly under 
the auspices of local businessmen and politicians, or are at 
least swayed by them.  As a consequence, Kazakhstanis tend to put 
markedly more faith in hearsay and anecdotal evidence and less in 
print media than do Americans. 
 
--------------------------- 
ATTITUDES TOWARD CORRUPTION 
--------------------------- 
 
¶15. (SBU) While Kazakhstanis are decidedly critical of high-level 
political and business-related corruption, they largely tolerate 
its street-level variant. In fact, corruption is so ingrained 
that locals sometimes fail to distinguish it from the motions of 
daily life. Instead, corruption in the form of bribes and 
kickbacks, exchange arrangements and trade-offs, is often viewed 
as a way to circumvent a hopelessly slow bureaucracy or exercise 
a certain degree of freedom in an otherwise inflexible system. 
 
¶16. (SBU) The resulting corruption in some industries, such as 
health care, is considered an accepted necessity. Kazakhstanis 
almost unanimously agree that the meager salaries paid doctors 
and their staffs cannot possibly ensure the level of service 
required of them, despite their best intentions. Corruption is 
seen as a natural result of a weak system, effectively shifting 
the burden of responsibility away from both the giving and 
receiving parties. 
 
¶17. (SBU) Many Kazakhstanis, nevertheless, acknowledge that this 
type of corruption progressively undermines institutions such as 
the educational system, and they often express a principled 
objection to corruption in general. Yet, when queried, many say 
that they prefer the status quo to a system completely without 
corruption. Furthermore, many feel it is the government's job to 
eliminate corruption at all levels and to set the example for the 
country. The situation is often summed up with the old Russian 
saying, "A fish rots from its head down." 
 
------------------------------ 
THE CONSEQUENCES OF CORRUPTION 
------------------------------ 
 
¶18. (SBU) The prevalence of corruption serves to effectively 
widen the already significant gap between the rich and the poor. 
Wealthy citizens can easily out-bribe the poor for preferential 
treatment in all the areas mentioned above. Because they can 
easily afford numerous, small traffic bribes, they are also more 
likely to disregard traffic laws and act with some level of 
impunity in other situations, undermining the standard of 
equality under the law. While the economic impact of `everyday' 
corruption is likely small, larger-scale forms of corruption 
intended to subvert free market mechanisms undoubtedly have a 
significant negative effect on Kazakhstan's economic potential. 
 
¶19. (SBU) Widespread bureaucratic corruption undoubtedly weakens 
the authority of the government. Whether due to increased media 
focus on corruption or the government's efforts to shift the 
blame, many Kazakhstanis cite democratization efforts as the 
cause of the perceived increase in corruption since the fall of 
the USSR.  When Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union, 
political corruption rarely made headlines and `everyday' 
corruption had not yet been stigmatized.  Kazakhstan's particular 
trajectory of democratization is also blamed for the rising 
oligarchy in the country. 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶20. (SBU) Comment: In the Kazakhstani context, corruption 
inflicts its greatest damage by slowly undermining the 
institutions of law, education and democracy.  As the process 
takes root, the rationale for engaging in corruption grows 
 
ALMATY 00001153  004 OF 004 
 
 
stronger and the fight against it more challenging. It is 
difficult to judge whether or when Kazakhstan will be able to 
combat this problem.  In a country with such centralized power 
and poorly-developed sense of individual civic duty, it is likely 
that only a demonstration of political will from the very top 
could reverse current trends.  However, there are few indications 
that such a demonstration will be forthcoming anytime soon.  End 
Comment. 
 
ORDWAY