Public Foundation "Elge Qaitaru" call to action regarding the actual loss of industrial assets of the "Caspian Mining and Metallurgical Combine"

Mr O.A. Bektenov, Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Chairman of the Asset Recovery Commission.

To the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mr B.N. Asylov.

To the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Agency, Mr A. Zhumagali A. Zh.

Mr N.M. Suindikov, Chairman of the Asset Recovery Committee of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Public Foundation “Elge Qaitaru” appeals to you with a request to take mea­sures regard­ing the actu­al loss of indus­tri­al assets of the for­mer “Caspian Mining and Metallurgical Combine” for the Republic of Kazakhstan, which occurred after its ille­gal privatisation.

“Pre-Caspian Mining and Metallurgical Combine” was estab­lished in accor­dance with the decree of the Government of the USSR dat­ed 8.01.1959 for min­ing and pro­cess­ing of ura­ni­um-phos­phate ores con­tain­ing rare earth ele­ments on the basis of the Melovoye deposit on the Mangyshlak penin­su­la and since 1965 was under the juris­dic­tion of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR. The plant was one of the flag­ships of the USSR defence indus­tri­al complex.

The com­bine includ­ed two mines, sev­er­al plants (sul­phuric acid, chem­i­cal-hydromet­al­lur­gi­cal, nitro­gen-tuke, machine-build­ing, repair-mechan­i­cal), the Caspian Construction Department and oth­er subdivisions.

As a result of the activ­i­ty of all these plants, pro­duc­tion wastes (tail­ings, sludge, etc.) were formed over a long peri­od of time. For exam­ple, only dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of sul­phuric acid about 12 mil­lion tonnes of pyrite cin­ders, which are valu­able raw mate­ri­als for cement pro­duc­tion, were deposit­ed. The vol­ume of waste of the Chemical and Hydrometallurgical Plant is about 400 thou­sand tonnes. All these wastes also con­tain rare earth met­als (scan­di­um, etc.) and are worth tens of mil­lions of US dol­lars today. According to the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion of the Republic of Kazakhstan, such wastes, called techno­genic min­er­al for­ma­tions, are cat­e­gorised as sub­soil and are state-owned.

In August 1992, with gross vio­la­tions of the leg­is­la­tion in force at that time, the com­bine was cor­po­ra­tised, trans­formed into JSC KASKOR and privatised.

Firstly, the com­bine was not sub­ject to pri­vati­sa­tion due to the nature of its activ­i­ties. Secondly, the size of the state share was crim­i­nal­ly reduced dur­ing pri­vati­sa­tion. Thirdly, all pro­ce­dures estab­lished by law were vio­lat­ed. Fourthly, sig­nif­i­cant state-owned assets of the com­bine were not account­ed for and valued.

Despite the actions of almost all inter­est­ed state bod­ies through­out the 1990s aimed at restor­ing the rule of law, the vio­la­tions could not be elim­i­nat­ed due to the inex­plic­a­ble actions of the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Subsequently, KASCOR was declared bank­rupt, the sludge stor­age facil­i­ty was ille­gal­ly includ­ed in the bank­rupt­cy estate and ille­gal­ly sold to pri­vate com­pa­nies by bank­rupt­cy trustees.

In con­nec­tion with the above-men­tioned, we ask you to ver­i­fy the above facts, take mea­sures to return the tail­ings-techno­genic min­er­al for­ma­tions of the for­mer Caspian Mining and Metallurgical Combine to the state and include them in the sub­soil of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

However, we also request an inven­to­ry of all oth­er tail­ings-techno­genic min­er­al for­ma­tions cre­at­ed before 1992 and an analy­sis of the obser­vance of the State’s prop­er­ty rights.

Respectfully,

У. C. Yerzhanov

Director of the pub­lic foun­da­tion “Elge Qaitaru”