Kazakhstan’s water program: paper rivers, phantom dams?

For 2025, the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nurzhan Nurzhigitov announced ambitious plans to build four new reservoirs in the country at once. Of course, this is an important matter, it’s not even a shame to take a loan from the Islamic Development Bank for it. The main thing is that the construction should start and end on time, because inflation does not bypass the building materials market. And what is now estimated at $2.7 billion may cost much more in a year. But it seems that there are problems with the timing of the construction of hydraulic structures: the correspondent of Ulysmedia.kz tried to find relevant lots on the public procurement portal, but it was not possible to understand who and when will build new reservoirs in Kazakhstan.

Few have been built, there are huge plans

The construction of 42 new reservoirs and the repair of 37 existing hydraulic structures by 2030 — it seems, wake up the staff of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation at night, they will report on these plans of the department without hesitation.

But what of this has already been built? Or at least in the pre-launch phase? After all, there is very little time left until 2030. As admitted in response to the official request of our editorial office in the relevant ministry, the completion of the facilities is still in the future.

    — In 2024, the construction of the Baidibek Ata reservoir in the Baidibek district of the Turkestan region for 68 million cubic meters began. The implementation period is 2024-2026.  Also, in 2024, the construction of the Karakuys reservoir in Kemekalgan rural district of Toleybi district, Turkestan region for 1 million cubic meters of water began. This project will be completed by the end of this year,” Yerbolat Ibraikhanov, Vice Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, told us.

In addition, as Minister Nurzhan Nurzhigitov has repeatedly stated, it is planned to start construction of 4 more reservoirs this year. Three of them are in the south of the country: on the rivers Talas, Kalguty and on the Karauzyak channel, the fourth is in the West Kazakhstan region on the Bolshoy Uzen River.

The agency also announced repair work on a number of reservoirs. In particular, it is planned to “capitalize” Ters-Ashybulak and Karakonyz in the Zhambyl region, the Koksarai counterregulator and the Koskorgan reservoir in the Turkestan region. Money has also been allocated for the restoration and digitalization of irrigation canals and other important works to provide the population with water in summer and flood protection in spring.

   — In 2025, it is planned to implement 98 projects worth 173.7 billion tenge, which is 73% more than the level of 2024, including 6.5 billion tenge at the expense of the EBRD, 24.4 billion tenge from the IDB. In turn, at the expense of the provided funds in the amount of 70.8 billion tenge, it is planned to complete 12 group water supply projects by the end of the year, which will provide 153 villages with high—quality drinking water with a population of 423 thousand people, Nurzhigitov reported earlier at a government meeting.

Akim hesitates, the minister has nothing to do with it

The meeting was held at the very end of June, but Minister Nurzhigitov, it seems, did not make a reservation: even in the regional news there is not a word about the start of work on the construction of reservoirs. We did not find any announcements on the announced projects on the Public Procurement portal from the subsidiary of MVRI — RSE Kazvodkhoz, so we asked the department directly: where to look for those reservoirs that Kazakhstan plans to build this year?

Yerbolat Ibraikhanov explained that akimats are responsible for the construction of iconic facilities.

   — Funds from the republican budget have been sent in the form of transfers to regional budgets. In particular, in 8 regions of the country — Akmola, Almaty, Atyrau, West Kazakhstan, Zhetisu, Pavlodar, Zhambyl and Turkestan – the allocated funds are intended for the implementation of projects aimed at improving water supply, restoring water bodies and increasing the efficiency of water resources in the above regions,” he said.

At the same time, for some facilities, in particular, for the Kalguta reservoir, the “planned start” is the development of design estimates, and the work itself will begin only in 2026.

At the same time, there are no announcements from akimats on these reservoirs.

The largest lot related to hydraulic structures in recent years is the coastal protection dams on Lake Alakol, as well as the overhaul of the Kunaev Grand Almaty Canal. The facilities are, of course, important, but not the ones that the Water Ministry announced.

One thing is declared, another is being built

Of the reservoirs under repair, there is no Koksarai or Koskorgan on the public procurement portal yet. But quite unexpectedly, announcements about the construction of dams along the Badam River in Shymkent appeared on the site. The Department for the Development of a comfortable urban environment in Shymkent allocates more than 2.5 billion tenge for this purpose.

   — The guiding dam and the drop structure of the Badam River are designed to protect against floods and coastal damage. The purpose of the project is to increase the basin with the strengthening of the banks of the Badam River to prevent flooding during floods of populated areas, irrigated lands located along the banks of the river, as well as to protect bridge crossings from erosion,” the technical specification for all lots associated with this construction says.

At the same time, the administration of Shymkent decided to finance the construction of several stages of the construction of a hydraulic structure at once.

HYDROLIFE-2050, a well-known company in Shymkent, won 3 out of 4 contests. She built many dams in the region, despite the fact that the main business of the LLP is the activity of road freight transport.

The surprise is that the Badamsky hydroelectric power plant is officially considered to be in satisfactory condition. Why did you need to repair it urgently?

At the same time, the state-owned Kazvodkhoz conducts tenders for minor repairs in various regions of the country. To plug up the body of the dam for 11.7 million tenge in Akmola region, replace the old hydraulic gates for 12 million … The largest application from Kazvodkhoz is 2 lots for the repair of the Kaztalov reservoir in the West Kazakhstan region, with a total amount of less than 65 million tenge.

Where there are documents, we work there

The paradoxical situation, on condition of anonymity, was reported by one of the employees of Kazvodkhoz.

   — Almost all the hydraulic structures that are being discussed now were scheduled for repair back in 2019 and earlier, but until 2024, there was catastrophically little money allocated for the implementation of these projects. As a result, all estimates need to be rechecked, and it’s not easy to do this, because they were approved earlier,” says a specialist in the water industry.

In addition, he admits that there are few water engineers left in the country, so new estimates are drawn up with such a “creak”, and the projects built as a result often turn out to be of poor quality.

Indirectly, the version that there is nothing but “paper” plans in the department is confirmed by the Vice Minister of Water Resources. He notes that for 4 reservoirs announced for 2025, the development of design estimates has only recently been completed, and for some projects it is necessary to raise documents from five years ago.

   — In Akmola region, a positive conclusion of a feasibility study (feasibility study) dated April 2, 2019 was received on the construction project of the Yesil counterregulator on the Yesil River. Currently, work is underway to develop design and estimate documentation (POI). The volume of the counterregulator will be 833.0 million m3, the area of irrigated land will be 94.1 thousand hectares. The project is planned for 2025-2028,” he says.

The question is, how many more such “outdated” estimates for reservoirs in the country? Won’t strategic facilities have to be built in a hurry just to fulfill the president’s instructions?

How high-quality will this construction be?

A touch to the picture

Recently, an appeal to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was recorded by residents of the village of Akbulak from the West Kazakhstan region. In 2022, the Aksaystroyservice & K company repaired the dam for 106.4 budget million tenge. The dam did not live even six months. For 2 years, villagers have not known how to water cattle and are looking for the truth in akimats. No one has conducted an investigation — why did the dam not survive the first spring? And if 106.4 million tenge is relatively small in the country, now the amounts allocated to the reservoirs are many times more. In fact, it turns out that no one is personally responsible for them: Akimats cannot finance projects without state expertise, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs only coordinates the work and then undertakes to take the constructed reservoirs to the balance of Kazvodkhoz. 

Anna Velichko (Ulysmedia.kz )

Original (in Russian): Водная программа Казахстана: бумажные реки, фантомные плотины?