Kazgeology has filed a lawsuit against Transtelecom due to the non-completion of the project to develop the IT platform of the National Mineral Resources Data Bank (NDB) for solid minerals. This is stated in the response of the Committee of Geology of the Ministry of Industry to the request of inbusiness.kz through the electronic system eotinish.kz.
“Funding of the project “Creation and implementation of the information system “National Data Bank of Mineral Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (IS NBD) was provided from the authorized capital of NGK Kazgeology JSC. The contractor was a consortium headed by Transtelecom JSC. In accordance with the terms of the contract, payment is made after the NBD IS is put into commercial operation and the project is fully implemented. To date, payment for services has not been made. Meanwhile, according to the information of NGK Kazgeologia JSC, as of today, NGK Kazgeologiya JSC has filed a lawsuit against Transtelecom JSC for damages under an agreement between the companies,” the message says.
Previously, the development of the NDB was estimated at 2.9 billion tenge, wrote inbusiness.kz in March 2019.
For its part, Transtelecom filed a counterclaim for the recovery of the amount for the actually performed work on the first stage and for the actual expenses incurred to fulfill the contract for the purchase of services between the companies, the letter specifies.
“02/07/2023, in online mode, the court announced a brief court decision in this civil case, where it refused to satisfy the claims of NMC Kazgeology JSC against Transtelecom JSC, and also denied the counterclaims of Transtelecom JSC to JSC “NGK “Kazgeologiya”. On February 14, 2023, the court issued a full and final court decision and posted it in the “court office” on February 15, 2023, indicating in it the right to appeal it within the time period established by law, ”the Geology Committee said in a statement.
Recall that the Subsoil Code, which came into force in 2018, anticipated the possibility of creating a special information system in the form of the NDB, through which market participants could receive all geological information and submit online applications for subsoil use sites on a “first come, first received” basis. The industrial launch of the automated system was planned at the end of 2019. However, its start was postponed several times by Kazgeology, which attracted a consortium of companies under the leadership of Transtelecom for IT development. As a result, the deadlines for the delivery of the NDS were postponed to 2021, and then to the summer of 2022.
Last year, the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources acknowledged the failure of creating the NBD information system and announced the decision to call for help from the Ministry of Digital Development for its subsequent integration with the database of the Unified State Subsoil Use Management System of the Ministry of Energy on the common Kaznedra platform until the end of 2023. Inbusiness.kz wrote in February that the geological IT platform minerals.gov.kz is now scheduled to be launched by summer.
Taking into account the fact that Kazgeology was going to join the National Geological Service (NGS) in 2022, inbusiness.kz had previously submitted a similar request to the subordinate organization of the Ministry of Industry, believing that its merger with Kazgeology had already taken place. However, the NGS explained that the national operator for the collection, storage, processing and provision of geological information is the legal successor of Kazgeoinform Republican Center for Geological Information LLP as a result of reorganization through transformation.
“The society is not a party and does not have information about the course of the trial related to the implementation of the project to develop the National Data Bank,” the NGS explained.
In July 2022, the head of the NGS, Zhanat Karibayev, told the media that, under the terms of the agreement between Kazgeology and Transtelecom, the payment for the development of the NDS was to take place only after the creation of the geological database, no funds were paid at that time.
By the way, earlier the anticorrosive agency reported on an investigation into the management of Kazgeology due to an increase in official salaries to the chairman of the board, his deputies and the chief geologist, which allegedly led to an overpayment of more than 169 million tenge in 2017-2019. The results of the investigation have not yet been made public.
Recall that from 2013 to 2018, Kazgeology was headed by Galym Nurzhanov, and then it was headed by Almaz Abdygalimov until mid-2020. Kadyrzhan Kauldashev, who worked for several years until the end of 2018 at Kazgeology, including as deputy chairman and acting chairman of the board, is now an independent director of the board of directors of the NGS.