Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan for

Kazakhstan is partially compliant with this recommendation. 
Recommendation 30 
Address corruption risks that are inherent in the organizational environment with appropriate 
internal control systems and identify the processes, controls and measures needed to mitigate those 
risks. Strengthen control environment and established such information system that can assist 
monitoring activities and financial reporting process throughout all public sector entities. Require 
internal auditors to conduct proactive auditing to search for corruption offences. Ask an independent 
external auditor to assist management by providing an evaluation of the entity’s process for identifying, 
assessing, and responding to the corruption risks. Ensure coordinative functioning of financial control 
and auditing bodies to facilitate revealing of corruption offences, and increase accountability for anti-
corruption responsibilities and duties. 
The Committee for Financial Control and Public Procurement of the Ministry of Finance (FC&PPC) 
notes that the “Financial Control” information system has been functional since 2005. The aforementioned 
information system is designed to centralise information about the control actions carried out by various 
branches of the FC&PPC. The Audit Committee has its own information system. At present, a new unified 
information system is being established, which will bring the above two systems together.
The FC & PPC also aims to improve quality of the institutional system of internal control. A “hot 
line” was introduced to obtain the opinion of the persons concerned about the activity of the FC & PPC and 
to provide them with the opportunity to report on the violations and misconduct of inspectors. The 
information on the inspections conducted in the sphere of financial control and violations detected are 
made public by the press service of Ministry of Finance.
In order to improve cooperation between the control bodies, the FC & PPC submits plans and reports 
of control actions to the Audit Committee for analysis, and to carry out joint control actions. 

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41 
The actions at the level of state or local authorities aiming to improve the internal control system 
especially by the general actions is lacking in Kazakhstan. No information about the external or internal 
corruption risk assessment conducted in the state and local authorities was provided. In addition, no 
information was provided on the external evaluation of state bodies made by auditors to assess the entities‟ 
processes for identifying, assessing, and responding to corruption risks. 
Internal audit is more concentrated on financial control in the RK. Internal auditors are required to 
search proactively for corruption offences. However, there is no systematic assessment of audit procedures 
at the state and local levels.
Article 141 of the Budget Code defines the activity of bodies of internal control. The point 2 of article 
141 says that the service of internal control is accountable for the head of central state authority. This 
distorts the primary mission of the service of internal control, i.e., to assist the head of state or local 
authority ensuring the sound and efficient performance of state or local authority. Points 5 of article 141 of 
Budget Code determines the functions and the rights of the internal control bodies, which are identical with 
the functions of the internal financial control bodies. As a result, the functions of these two bodies overlap. 
The Kazakh authorities need to consider establishing an internal audit function for all state and local 
authorities, which would be accountable to the heads of these authorities (these authorities in turn would 
remain under the authority of the competent central state authority. The function of the audit would be to 
assist the heads of these state and local authorities in ensuring the sound and efficient performance of their 
duties. 
The Budget Code provides for a possibility to employ external experts and auditors for the state 
authorities executing external and internal financial control. However, the law does not provide for a 
mechanism to review recommendations of such external experts and auditors. Therefore, their role in the 
execution of financial state control can be more harmful than useful as it may create the risk of intentional 
or unintentional undue influence.
To minimise the corruption risk the possibility to introduce (obligatory) corruption risk assessment for 
state and local authorities conducted regularly with the assistance of competent body and applying the 
outcome to develop the anticorruption programme should be considered. The corruption risk assessment 
can be introduced as the function of internal audit. The methodology for the corruption risk assessment 
should be developed by competent body or local and foreign experts aiming to assist state and local 
authorities when evaluating the corruption risk inherent in their activity.