The Land Resources Management Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan has developed a draft presidential decree allowing business inspections for compliance with land laws. The document is posted for discussion on the Open NLA portal.
The project proposes an amendment to the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated December 26, 2019 "On the introduction of a moratorium on inspections and preventive control and supervision with a visit in the Republic of Kazakhstan".
Paragraph 1 of this decree prohibits central and local authorities from conducting inspections and preventive control with visits to small businesses. The moratorium is valid from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2023, but there are a number of exceptions that give rise to inspections. In the number of exceptional cases, the Land Committee proposes to introduce inspections and preventive control over compliance with the land legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The explanatory note notes that the moratorium introduced in 2020 does not give the right to visit entrepreneurs for the purpose of inspections. In July 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture approved recommendations on the definition of the concept of "mass threat" for the possibility of conducting inspections on the non-use or irrational use of agricultural land during the period of the decree.
“However, when conducting verification activities within the framework of the “mass threat” on the ground, a number of issues arise, namely, complaints from the inspected subjects regarding the legality of conducting inspections at the time of the current decree, which are a deterrent to judicial review,” the note says.
The adoption of the proposed addition to the decree will make it possible to conduct "land" checks.
It should be noted that this year the territorial divisions of the Committee for Land Management are planned to inspect about 2 thousand business entities with a total area of land used 5.8 million hectares.