Government support in Kazakhstan should be directed towards citizens who genuinely need it. This was stated by deputy Mukash Iskandirov in a request addressed to the Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population, Svetlana Zhakupova, as reported by a correspondent from the Kapital.kz business information center.
“It must be acknowledged that currently, support measures are provided without considering the actual incomes of citizens. Often, families that do not need such assistance, including wealthy ones, receive it. It is necessary to improve the support mechanisms for the population taking this aspect into account,” he believes.
In practice, targeted social assistance (TSA) "is increasingly becoming a factor that hinders development and labor activity."
“The TSA system creates a paradoxical situation: instead of being temporary support, it becomes a means of survival. Many families, in order to retain benefits, fictitiously divorce or hide their incomes. Wealth control is conducted based on formal criteria: not only real incomes are considered, but also ownership of livestock, as the calculation method takes into account even one chicken or cow. As a result, families are forced to choose between developing even a small farm or risking losing assistance. The current TSA system does not address the problem of poverty but rather reinforces dependence on the state,” he noted.
Mukash Iskandirov believes that the approaches to providing TSA need to be fundamentally rethought.
“The TSA, intended to help low-income families, actually demotivates them from earning independently and hinders business development,” he pointed out in his request.
The deputy proposed:
- to shift from passive support to social adaptation and implement programs for vocational education, training, retraining, and employment assistance for the long-term independence of beneficiaries;
- to make the criteria for assigning TSA more flexible, expanding the assessment criteria to include not only official income but also the real standard of living of the family, considering regional specifics and the current socio-economic situation;
- to strengthen control over the targeted use of assistance and introduce mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the support provided to prevent misuse of funds and ensure their targeted distribution;
- to reform the TSA system and move towards more targeted benefits aimed at addressing specific needs (for example, expenses for education, healthcare, housing), which will allow a departure from the model that only supports the status of being low-income;
- to reconsider the terms for confirming the right to TSA and change the rules for assigning and paying benefits, establishing annual confirmation of the right to receive assistance instead of the current three-month period, thus reducing the administrative burden on families and government agencies.
By the end of 2024, targeted social assistance (TSA) was assigned to 413.7 thousand people from 78.1 thousand families. A total of 39.5 billion tenge was allocated from the budget for these purposes.