— Zhanassyl Begaliyevich, this has already become a tradition—every couple of years, our publication and you “compare notes“ in a major interview. Today, I’d like to start with a timely issue—with the President’s call, I would even say challenge, to the state apparatus: to try creating information systems without budget expenditures. Did you also detect a certain sarcasm in Tokayev’s words, given how many billions are being spent today on all kinds of information systems?
— Whether there was sarcasm, I wouldn’t presume to judge. But I agree with the Head of State one hundred percent. Clearly, it is wrong to spend budget funds on projects that can and should be implemented without involving the state treasury. I have said this repeatedly, and our company has adhered to this principle in its work for decades.
— Turn everything over to the private sector? But what about national interests, social justice, and information security...
— What you’re listing are exactly the talking points and scare tactics traditionally used to extract budget money for IT projects. Of course, no one is taking these issues off the agenda. But with the right approach, cooperation between the state and business is more effective than direct budget payments and more cost-efficient. When private entrepreneur Elon Musk began driving the spaceflight agenda, U.S. national interests and NASA hardly lost out. On the contrary, they benefited. The state should be a smart regulator: set the rules of the game, reward success, and punish violations. That division of roles would be ideal. Of course, when it comes to protecting sensitive data, the final word must belong to the state. Absolutely.
— It’s not entirely clear: are you in favor of turning over the market for developing government digital services to private companies, or are you not?
— I am in favor of business taking an active part in this. Put simply, private companies and their services should have a strong presence in the market; they should work directly with users, provide services to them, and earn money. That is the second tier. The first tier is that databases should remain in the hands of the state, on its servers and under its control. I believe that arrangement is the right one. It is a kind of social contract: the state stays out of the front end, but through system integration it provides data to private services so they can operate. It is a flexible system that will allow private players to grow and compete with one another, while enabling the state to protect the interests of its citizens and its national interests.
One example is the school funding project, where we established a constructive dialogue with the private IT sector, which provides schools with digital learning system services—the so-called gradebooks, or LMS (learning management systems). We simply connected all electronic gradebooks to our system and avoided unnecessary costs in time and other resources. In other words, this is a clear example of how we implemented our two-tier approach.
And we did not invent it. It has long been used in public administration. Take fiscal data operators, for example: they provide paid services to businesses for fiscal recordkeeping, while transmitting all data to the Ministry of Finance. You get competition, and therefore quality, along with a customer-centric private IT sector motivated to grow.
Most importantly, the state does not spend money creating cumbersome monopolistic front-end systems, whose quality by definition cannot be better than that of private providers. In other words, the formula for carrying out the Head of State’s instruction has existed for a long time; it’s just that not everyone is prepared to work under competitive conditions. Many want to avoid competition through a government contract and government money. But that is a path to inefficiency. Kazakhstan is building a market economy, and replacing entrepreneurial initiative with the state is definitely not about competition, quality, or citizen satisfaction.
— Let’s return to the topic of budget expenditures. In our last conversation, you stated very clearly that allocating money to state information services was, to put it mildly, wrong. Let me remind you: at one point, a farmer subsidy system was developed under a public-private partnership model, but in the end the decision was made to create a state system, again at the government’s expense. Was the first approach a mistake?
Specific users should pay for the service, not all Kazakhstanis through the general budget pool
— My position has not changed in two years: specific users should pay for the service. If it is a tool for farmers, then they should be the ones paying for it—not all Kazakhstanis through the general budget pool. In any case, our subsidy administration service on the Qoldau platform was clear and transparent, all registries were public, and it had robust analysis and control mechanisms.
All of this is necessary because farmers receive state support—they must be transparent. That is the key to the effectiveness of the state budget and its resilience against budget fraud, in other words, against financial misconduct.
I think agriculture, sooner or later, will also have to adopt a two-tier approach, under which each farmer will have a private digital recordkeeping system connected to the state system. In other words, the digital recordkeeping we once introduced in the form of a logbook—field history logs and pasture history logs used to record all agronomic events or zootechnical events—will inevitably have to be revived. But let me remind you, we already discussed this topic two years ago. I would rather not return to it.
— But then let me also remind you that two years ago, you spoke about some kind of “supersystem“ level of monitoring that would aggregate data on state support measures. As I understand it—and the President said the same thing—such a unified platform still does not exist?
— Yes, at the expanded government meeting, the Head of State issued an instruction, and later protocol instructions from the prime minister were formalized on this matter. Their essence is that all state support measures must be brought together in one system—a kind of “supersystem“ center, or, more simply, a first-tier system. It will aggregate data from all government agencies and departments from their second-tier systems. This is necessary to avoid duplication and ensure clear monitoring and effectiveness assessment. In that respect, the objectives remain the same.
As for the timeline, unfortunately, not everything depends on us alone. Over more than 30 years of the Information and Accounting Center’s history, we have proven in practice that we can solve large-scale government tasks within tight timeframes—literally in months and even weeks. But before business processes can be reworked and digitalized, everything must be set out in normative legal acts: specific laws, government resolutions, administrative orders, and rules. We cannot put the cart before the horse. In this case, the “horse“ is the legal framework, whose drafting and coordination takes many months. The process is moving forward slowly but steadily. The President’s criticism has mobilized the state apparatus, and the rollout of the new service has accelerated, although not all government agencies are acting promptly.
Incidentally, there is excellent news on that front: lawmakers recognized the problem and, through amendments to the law, gave the Ministry of Finance the ability to apply a regulatory sandbox regime. Starting in July 2026, when the amendments take effect, the Ministry of Finance will be able to establish its own special rules and pilot digital projects where there is an urgent need to restore order or bring back common sense.
— When you say, “Not all government agencies,“ is your politeness and lack of specific names due to a reluctance to air dirty laundry in public?
— Apparently so. In any case, we’re all in the same boat and tackling shared challenges. Naming government agencies now, let alone individuals, would be, to put it mildly, inappropriate.
— All right. Let’s get back to the money. How much is the government currently spending overall to support businesses?
— About 1.5 trillion tenge in direct budget payments annually. That does not include state support in the form of tax incentives and various in-kind grants. Our task now is to place the full volume of state support under centralized recordkeeping, that is, to create BIG DATA. Next, an effectiveness analysis of each of these measures will be introduced for each individual beneficiary. All the necessary methodology for the analysis is now being incorporated into the regulatory framework that we developed jointly with specialists from the Ministry of National Economy and the Ministry of Finance.
Incidentally, this is where AI will be applied in a practical sense. With its help, budget policy will be shaped—everything “historically wasteful“ will be scaled back, while, conversely, whatever benefits the economy and the budget will be expanded.
I won’t disclose all the details just yet, but I promise that everything will be as accessible and transparent as possible for every taxpayer. I am convinced that there is no better watchdog than civil society.
— One and a half trillion is no small number. That means huge volumes of data as well. Does that concern you from a technical standpoint?
— Yes, the figures are impressive, but that is only a small part of it. I think that within the next six months, about 40 percent of budget expenditures will be executed or monitored using services developed by our programmers—the team at JSC Information and Accounting Center. That speaks to their high professional caliber. We managed to bring them together as one team, and while I have the chance, I would like to thank them all. In fact, the specialists at JSC Information and Accounting Center are carrying an enormous workload: the company’s digital services currently have a total of 787,000 users, or 5,581 users per full-time employee. And the workload continues to grow.
— And how did you arrive at that 40 percent?
— In November of last year, the Information and Accounting Center was mobilized to digitalize the financing of private secondary education providers after inflated reporting, ghost beneficiaries, and unlicensed services were uncovered. Now digitalization is being extended not only to private schools, but also to all public schools, as well as preschool education, supplementary education, and technical and vocational education. Similarly, we are now implementing services in the area of health insurance.
Those two areas together account for about 9 trillion tenge in budget expenditures, plus the state support measures we discussed. Taken together, that is about 10.5 trillion tenge, which is nearly 40 percent of budget expenditures. I think that is the best indicator of our effectiveness as a modern IT company. And I’ll repeat: all of this was done without budget funds and with a small staff that has not grown for many years. In other words, the formula for effective digital solutions lies not in crowds of developers or enormous budgets, but in rational approaches to solving problems.
— There were reports on social media that it was precisely because of the rollout of new services in education that debts to teachers arose...
— No, you are confusing cause and effect. I state officially and unequivocally: our company entered this area only after the crisis had already emerged and after statements about acts of self-immolation. Anyone working in this field will confirm what I’m saying, and there are also official letters and protocols with specific dates. The main thing is that teachers received their salaries. In a short period, nearly 76 billion tenge—four months of arrears—was paid out through the new service. Today there is no such emergency anymore; the market is taking shape and becoming more orderly. If as of January 1 of this year one-third of private schools did not meet the requirements, today their share is about 10 percent. I repeat, the main thing is that the information service created in a matter of weeks helped defuse social tensions.
— But schools still direct their share of criticism at you, don’t they?
— That is part of our work. The Information and Accounting Center has always been a pioneer in the digitalization of public services and the management of state property. It is important to establish a dialogue with market participants, even if that dialogue comes through criticism and emotion. All of our meetings, our Zoom sessions with questions and criticism from users—everything is publicly available. We stand for transparency. This is a normal process of growth. Over 30 years, our reputation has been impeccable. There have been no projects that failed or led to criminal cases, although there have been many inspections. Of course, there are projects that “didn’t take off“ or are still waiting for their time. But no budget funds are involved in them.
— Just as the President requires.
— Exactly. We have been working this way for a long time. Moreover, our services deliver not only transparency and faster decision-making, but also real money to the state treasury. Since the beginning of the year, the electronic border booking service CarGoRuqsat has brought 3.5 billion tenge into the budget. Last year, it generated more than 20 billion tenge. So a relatively new service that minimized corruption risks in a highly problematic area has also brought Kazakhstan nearly 30 billion tenge in two years. And note that this is already on the revenue side of the state budget. In other words, our projects are not only used for budget expenditure oversight, but also replenish the budget. And the service itself was built in literally two to three weeks. The implementation process took longer because of resistance from those who had been profiting from gray schemes.
— Is there no such resistance now?
— Not on the same scale as in the first few months. Now everything is up and running, and the service is constantly being updated and developed. Not long ago, together with partners, we developed the Silk Road Express project. It is a program integrated with CarGoRuqsat that enabled Chinese carriers to receive services in digital format in their own language. In January, this project won an award at the international Weixin Open Class PRO 2026 competition in China. It was recognized as the Global Digital Pioneer of the Year. As the saying goes, no one is a prophet in his own land, but becoming the best among 4,000 participants on one of the largest platforms in the WeChat ecosystem is a major achievement.
This victory confirmed the global competitiveness of Kazakhstan’s digital solutions. The key point is the result: the solution improved the efficiency of cross-border logistics between Kazakhstan and China, increasing the potential for trade development and enhancing Kazakhstan’s reputation in the international market as a reliable trading partner.
— Which projects are currently the main priorities for the Information and Accounting Center? Will you be able to talk about the successes of these projects in a few years?
— All projects matter. Of course, projects tied to the social sector are a special priority—first and foremost education funding and health insurance. The Head of State consistently emphasizes the importance of these areas for the state. In addition, we are currently working on an important digital VAT project, e-₸amga. It is one of our most ambitious projects. Put simply, we are gradually implementing the concept of digital VAT. Businesses receive special virtual VAT wallets that permanently link an electronic invoice to real money. In other words, it will no longer be possible to simply “fabricate“ documents—the system will automatically verify whether funds are available in the wallet, and if they are not, the suspicious transaction simply will not go through. This puts an end to the old cash-out schemes and sham entrepreneurship. For honest businesses, this is an entirely new reality. We expect excess VAT refunds to be reduced to 15 days instead of months of stress and tax audits. In the future, this will become a seamless service: taxes will be paid almost imperceptibly at the moment of the transaction, while the need for tax audits and punitive measures will fall by 70–80%. The state gets a transparent budget, and entrepreneurs get peace of mind and minimal paperwork.
Ultimately, all of our digital headaches are not about control for control’s sake, but about recordkeeping, order, and common sense. We would like to see a time, a couple of years from now, when we have forgotten words like “bureaucracy“ and “gray schemes“ altogether, and technology simply helps people do their jobs without being distracted by paperwork. That is where we are headed, and judging by the results, we are moving fairly quickly.
— Thank you for the conversation!
— Thank you for the interesting questions!
