Implementation of tasks given by President is in the spotlight

Having opened the press conference, Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister Gulshara Abdykalikova dwelled upon the main three issued outlined by the Head of State, Nursultan Nazarbayev, at the 18th Congress of Nur Otan Party.

“The new social initiatives announced can be put into three blocks: income growth and support for families with low income; provision of housing to low-income families, quality education and healthcare; the regions’ development. KZT2.3tln will be allocated to deal with these issues in the next three years”, the Kazakh Vice Prime Minister said, underlining high priority given to explanatory work.

Also she added that in this regard, starting with the next week, they will leave for the regions to raise the awareness of the population of the explanatory work, including myself and the Ministers, who are present.

According to her, this explanatory work is set to cover all the regions. The importance of all the means, among them are meetings with citizens of each region, including separate meetings with certain categories of the population.

“For instance, Kulyash Nogatayevna [Shamshidinova, Minister of Education and Science – author’s note] will meet with representatives of education, teachers in the villages. Yelzhan Amantayevich [Birtanov, Healtchare Minister - author’s note] – with representatives of medicine. All us will meet with different categories of the population”, she proceeded.

Being familiarized with the work of the People Service Centers, the Population Employment Centers was also regarded as important.

The Kazakh Deputy Prime Minister expressed her readiness for constructive work and her openness with journalists.

The next whom the spotlight was on was Kazakh Minister of Labor and Social Protection of Population Berdybek Saparbayev.

In his speech, he mentioned of the cards enabling to find out those families that are in most need for further primarily support and help to them. The Minister went on to say that the work is underway with the local executive government to come up with a single social package of services. At the expense of the local executive government, such help is provided to children, families, and Kazakh citizens.

“There is the President’s instruction saying assistance and support should be given primarily to the families, Kazakh citizens. To this end, we and the local executive government work to create an individual social card so as to know their working statuses, wages, the existing problems, and so on”, he said.

The Minister added that as for allowance for disabled children and child-care allowances over the age of 18, if this amount was 31 thousand 180 tenge, then it raised by 10 thousand tenge, equaling 41 thousand 578 tenge.

According to him, such a measure will embrace not less than 100 thousand Kazakh citizens.

“Our main task is that Kazakh citizens, able to work, could work, and offering them workplaces, employing them, and create all conditions so they could make money. In this regard, an additional 505 thousand grants will be allocated for over 5 thousand citizens. Also, as many as 10 thousand micro credits will be provided mainly to rural dwellers, disabled people. In addition, we have many examples of home workplaces being created, that is some sew, some cook, and so on”, he said.

To this end, the Ministry jointly with the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs work to create conditions for raising children and making income simultaneously. The work with the local executive government to reach extra support from them, especially in terms of housing, is in underway.

Minister Berdybek Saparbayev said that our businessmen, heads of large enterprises and companies provide support to the families with low incomes, families with many children, especially in regard with housing. The work will be continued regarding allotting lands, rented housing, and so on.

According to the speaker, packages of normative acts are being prepared, the work with the local executive government and our business structure will be continued.

He once again reaffirmed their openness and readiness to answer any question mattering most.

Education was also among the President’s tasks given at the Nur Otan Party congress, including the teachers’ salaries, their professionalism and the process of learning. Minister of Education Kulyash Shamshidinova underlined the importance of brining the things occurring in education to a logical conclusion.

“There are certain things we are discussing today, first off, it is professionalism of the teaching staff. Therefore, the work to improve the skills of teachers, pedagogical workers will be continued. This year, the improvement of the skills of psychologists will take place for the first time, with over 7000 teachers working at schools, including headteachers”, she said.

The Minister added that the upgrading of the educational programmes will be to meet the modern requirements.

“We are talking about the unnecessity of information education. It is when ready processed information is presented to schoolers; today it is all about the schooler’s engagement in his learning process. That is the teacher should come up with tasks, questions, and the student should gradually understand, perceive new materials, new tasks by solving, accomplishing, answering the questions. It is, of course, requires the readiness of teachers, therefore such work is underway by the Ministry of Education and Science”, Shamshidinova stated.  

Speaking of the teachers’ salaries, the speaker said, primarily it would concern low-paid employees of the education system. They are technical staff, some categories of pedagogical workers, including educators, their assistants, psychologists, those with low salaries compared to the main body of pedagogical workers.

According to her, the purposeful increase in the teachers’ salaries has been undergoing during the last several years. The last took place in 2018, the teachers had their salaries increased from 30% to 50% in regard with their qualification.

Kazakh Minister of Healthcare Yelzhan Birtanov answered the question of what are in process to improve the quality and accessibility of healthcare, starting with medical workers’ salary increase ending with the accessibility of medical institutions to ordinary people.

“In order to fulfill the President’s tasks, our work is carried out in three directions. First off, increase in salaries of those medical workers with low salaries. To this end, nurses and medical staff paid low, including nursing assistant, laboratory workers will see a 30% increase in their salaries, with salary increase for some highly demanded medical staff, including primary health care household doctors, pediatricians, obstetricians, gynecologists, EMTs”, he said.

According to him, the wages of 225 thousand medical workers will rise.

“As for the second direction, the Head of State tasked to increase the accessibility of hospitals. According to our estimations, it takes 40 minutes for the ordinary citizens to get to their household doctors on average, with large policlinics located far away. So we plan to open approximately 600 primary health care institutions within three years, with a majority of them located in rural areas. And, we are to reach a 100% solution to rural citizens’ accessibility to medical care. What about our principle, then we aim at bringing all the primary health care institutions close to citizens as soon as possible. This is what the President’s task is about”, the Minister added.

Today the expenses funneling towards this area is 40%, they will be increased to 60%. Concerning mainly primary medical care and the healthcare system, it implies the prevention of diseases. So, there are plans to increase the funds being allocated to these areas within 3 years, including vaccination, screening, free medications, and primary health care, as was already mentioned.

“The last one is infrastructure improvement in the field of medicine, as you know many of domestic hospitals are worn out, the depreciation level is very high, major repairs are needed in most cases. Investments of KZT120bn are planned to this end following the Head of State’s task, including 7 large medical institutions, children’s hospitals, maternity hospitals, multi-profile hospitals, TB centers. Our general task is to increase the quality and accessibility of medical services”, the speaker concluded.

Having started to speak, Agriculture Minister Saparkhan Omarov outlined that over 46% of the population dwell in rural areas. The Ministry is concerned about their relocation to the cities.

“To solve the relocation issues, we should provide them with jobs and create the possibilities for them to do business. In this connection, the national programme to develop the agro-industrial complex was approved. As part of this programme, a great number of measures to support rural dwellers are envisaged. So, work is planned by corelating the measures with the Head of State’s task “Aul el besigi”. According to this programme, for those expressing their wish to run family farms, many possibilities are being created so they could produce milk and eat as well as gourds. This is within each citizens’ reach. The farmer can rent 500 ha of land and graze 50 cows, receiving loans for cattle, machines, wagons, carrying an interest rate of 4% that would be paid for up to 15 years”, he said.

The speaker also underlined that the development of the agro-industrial complex would include affordable funds, possibilities to produce, orders for these products to develop agriculture.

As for milk production, the Minister shared the plan of increasing milk production to 1 million tons per year.

“As part of the existing programmes, 100 small meat farms, 100 small milk farms are planned to be constructed. Within the “Sybaga” programme, rural dwellers can purchase cattle. In 2018, our plan on this programme was reached, with over 600 farmers took loans under this programme. The programme mainly focuses to resolve employment issues in rural areas”, the Minister of Agriculture concluded.

We remind that on 27 February, 2019, at the XVIII Nur Otan Party Congress Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke of the allocation of funds of KZT2tln from the National Fund in a bid to increase the life quality and wellbeing of Kazakh citizens, with the President’s new social initiatives to open up new levels of social development for Kazakhstan.

Adlet Seilkhanov

Photo by Chingiz Kapparov