On December 23, 2022, the Tagzym memorial dedicated to the January events was erected and opened in Almaty on Republic Square. Relatives of the Kantara victims were not invited to the ceremony; it was attended mainly by officials. The amount that the authorities spend on maintaining the memorial has increased significantly over the past year.

Factcheck.kz reported on how much they plan to allocate for the maintenance of the memorial in 2025 and how much it cost before.

What happened

On January 17, the office of the Akim of the Bostandyk district of Almaty announced the purchase of services for the maintenance of the Tagzym memorial. The state purchase will cost the city authorities 145,727,343 tenge. At the moment, the tender has not yet been played out.

What does the supplier need to do for this money?

According to the technical specification, the only task of the potential supplier during the year is to keep the monuments and the area around them clean and tidy. In winter, the memorial, paths and stairs must be cleared of snow and ice, and in spring and summer, the lawn must be watered and mowed, the plants must be looked after and, if necessary, the area must be sown with seeds. The supplier must also clean the bins, lawn and benches from garbage every day and maintain the asphalt and granite surfaces in an aesthetically pleasing condition.

What exactly needs to be kept clean

The customer specified the specific number and area of objects that must be kept clean. Among them: granite pavement with an area of 1,229.08 square meters, asphalt concrete pavement with an area of 880 square meters, five white, eight black and two gray steles, as well as three small architectural forms, 16 benches, 16 urns, three decorative ponds, a lawn with an area of 1,045.92 square meters, 43 trees, nine plants and 14 bushes.

Additionally: The supplier also needs to conclude contracts with the State Enterprise “Almaty Su” for consumed water and with TOO “Almatyenergosbyt” for electricity.

What else is known

The publication writes that the customer has prescribed rather extensive qualification requirements for the competition participants: “According to the document, a potential supplier must have resources in the form of: 45 general workers (of which at least five must have Almaty registration), nine drivers (one with registration), three workers with permission to work at height, persons responsible for environmental protection, fire safety, safety, machine operators, dispatchers with at least three years of experience, forestry engineers, and so on.”

What was before

In May 2024, the Akimat of the Bostandyk District also purchased services for the maintenance of the Tagzym memorial, but 35 million tenge were allocated for this.

"Then the winner was Stamp service LLC. Last year, the Akimat concluded the relevant agreement only on June 21, respectively, the work was carried out for 6 months and 10 days. Thus, a month of maintaining the memorial cost the state budget 5.8 million tenge. In 2025, if the agreement is concluded in February, it will be valid for 11 months. But even with an increase in the term of maintaining the memorial per month, if the final amount remains at the level of 145 million tenge, it may more than double in price and amount to 13.2 million tenge per month," the text says.

It is noted that qualification requirements have changed significantly over the year; technical specifications have not changed.

"In 2024, the Akimat required only 10 general workers to care for the memorial, who did not need Almaty registration, as did the drivers, and there were no workers with permission to work at heights at all. It is unknown what explains this change," writes Factcheck.

  

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Cover: photo by Akorda press service