Press conference on the implementation of the New Social Measures of Elbasy “Aleumettik Qamqorlyq” announced at the XVIII Congress of the Nur Otan party was held in the Government’s press center. Government members represented by Deputy Prime Minister Gulshara Abdykalikova and the ministers of labor and social protection of the population, education and science, healthcare, and agriculture answered all questions from the media.

Opening the press conference, Deputy Prime Minister Gulshara Abdykalikova said that the social block of the Government will have to carry out a large amount of work on the development of human capital, including identifying low-income families and providing them with timely state support.

New social initiatives can be divided into large blocks: increasing income and support for low-income citizens, providing low-income families with housing, improving the quality of education and healthcare and developing the regions. In the next three years, 2.3 trillion tenge will be allocated from the budget for these purposes.

According to the deputy prime minister, in this direction much attention will be paid to explanatory work.

“A group consisting of the first heads of ministries and departments intend to visit all regions of the country,” said Abdykalikova.

The reception of citizens, separate meetings on categories of the population will be held. For example, Minister of Education and Science Kulyash Shamshidinova will meet with representatives of education, teachers in villages. Minister of Healthcare Yelzhan Birtanov — with medical workers.

“We will all meet with different categories of the population,” explained Abdykalikova.

She also informed that during the visits, the work of the Public Service Centers and Employment Centers will be inspected.

“More than 4 million families in Kazakhstan have different income levels. Of course, everyone wants support, but here it should be noted that assistance will be provided to the most in need. And other families will be considered individually. This is (first of all, measures of social support), providing jobs, providing loans for starting and continuing business, creating conditions for working at home,” explained Abdykalikova.

Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population Berdibek Saparbayev spoke about measures to ensure a decent standard of living for citizens, including wage increases for low-income public sector employees, support for low-income families, and expanding employment promotion measures for large families.

The question and answer session began with an explanation of support measures and state assistance to large families. In particular, the correspondent of Vremya newspaper asked Saparbayev to clarify the main criteria for the appointment of targeted social assistance and the conditions for its appointment.

To begin with, the minister recalled that, on behalf of the President, assistance should be rendered, first of all, to the poorest families of Kazakhstan. To this end, it is planned to develop an individual social card for each family in order to be informed about the income and problems of families in need.

The criterion for the provision of targeted social assistance by the state is the amount of income for each family member, which should not exceed 70% of the subsistence minimum. By the way, this criterion has been raised: from 50% to 70% of the subsistence minimum per person, that is, from 14,849 to 20,789 tenge in 2019.

“When appointing social assistance, benefits to families with many children and mothers with many children awarded Kumіs Alqa and Altyn Alqa pendants, as well as disability benefits for children will be excluded from the total family income. Every month, for each child from a low-income family, guaranteed assistance of 70% of the subsistence minimum (20,789 tenge) will be paid. The size of the assistance for adult family members will be calculated as before,” explained Saparbayev.

The minister also noted that this will allow an average increase in aid by 40%. These measures will cover more than 830 thousand people.

Government support will also affect people who care for children with disabilities over 18 years of age.

“Previously, this amount was 31,183 tenge, now it has been increased by almost 10 thousand tenge and is 41,578 tenge, this measure will cover at least 100 thousand Kazakhstani people,” he said.

In addition, the procedure for assigning support will be simplified through the optimization of the requested documents. So, all the necessary documents will be requested through the information systems of state bodies. All that is required of citizens is an identity card.

The correspondent of the Azattyq Radio addressed Saparbayev asking about the criteria for assigning the status of the “family with many children":

“Can low-income families with three children, for example, expect social benefits, in general, if the family is low-income, but does not have many children, does it have the right to receive the assistance?” the journalist asked.

Answering the question, the minister emphasized that a family has the right to be called large if it brings up four or more children, and all social benefits will depend solely on family income.

Correspondents of Khabar 24 and Astana TV channels asked Saparbayev to clarify the conditions of the Enbek State Program for the Development of Productive Employment and Mass Entrepreneurship taking into account the needs of large families.

According to Saparbayev, this issue is being worked out jointly with Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs. It is planned to make corresponding changes that provide state grants of 505 thousand tenge to new families on a non-refundable basis.

“In 2019 as part of the program, 5,000 microcredits are to be directed to the development of entrepreneurship among mothers with many children and persons with disabilities in the village. As a result, 15 thousand large families will have the opportunity to do their own business and increase income. Our main task is to provide Kazakhstanis who can work with jobs, it is necessary to employ them and create all conditions for them to earn money. For this we will work together with the Atameken so that they can open a business for themselves, can simultaneously raise their children and earn money,” said Saparbayev.

Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kulyash Shamshidinova spoke about the differentiated increase in wages by 30% to low-paid education workers.

“These are mainly technical personnel of educational institutions and some categories of pedagogical workers: kindergarten teachers, assistant teachers, psychologists,” said the minister.

A correspondent of 31^st Channel asked whether it was planned to make changes to the knowledge assessment system (return to the grading system) in schools and to conduct the Unified National Testing.

Answering the question, Shamshidinova stressed that it is not just knowledge that should be evaluated. Today teachers should understand how much a student knows, understands, knows how to apply, analyze, summarize information and draw his own conclusions. The main task (facing the Kazakh education system) is that the student should have the opportunity to improve their assessment.

She also assured that the agency will work to improve the content of UNT issues. Major changes in the testing are not planned.

“We are not saying that today we will change something. The process is continuous — our children graduate from schools, they will pass the UNT, they should not be driven into a stressful state. There is a form, but we will work to improve the content of the questions, to evaluate what we have been teaching children for 11 years at school,” Shamshidinova explained.

In turn, the Minister of Healthcare Yelzhan Birtanov informed about the wage increase by 30% to all nurses and junior medical staff, which is planned from July 1, 2019. The salary of doctors in the most demanded specialties will also increase. Thus, the salary of more than 225 thousand medical workers will be increased.

Taking this opportunity, the moderator of the press conference voiced the question that had been received by the editors of the PrimeMinister.kz website regarding the work being done to increase the availability of medical services in rural areas.

Birtanov answered that it is planned to construct primary health care facilities until 2021, most of which will be built in rural areas.

“Our task is to ensure the availability of basic medical services that people use every day. This is primarily the services of clinics, services of district doctors, pediatricians, that is, primary care. To this end, we have worked with local executive bodies in 328 settlements, where there are worn out emergency first-aid posts and where there are no them — medical organizations, primary health care centers, outpatient clinics will be created, that is, the task is to provide the rural population with 100% access to primary health care in three years,” said Birtanov.

The correspondent of 31^st Channel, in turn, asked the head of the Ministry of Healthcare about the work being carried out to create clinics on the first floors of residential buildings. According to the journalist, today there are many clinics in the country, but mostly they are private institutions and are not accessible to everyone.

Birtanov, answering the question, noted that in order to make services in private clinics accessible, first of all, participation of private clinics in the provision of guaranteed free medical care and medical insurance in the future is necessary.

“It is necessary that when a person receives services in private clinics, he does not pay, but the state pays for him. To do this, we involve private clinics in the provision of guaranteed healthcare. At present, 47% of the guaranteed services are provided by private clinics, that is, every second clinic that provides such services belongs to a private form of ownership,” said Birtanov.

The minister also added that today there is a question of disaggregating clinics in order to create individual or group practices on the first floors of residential buildings.

“Therefore, our task is to reduce the load by two times within three years. Encourage small forms so that people can receive medical services within walking distance,” the minister noted.

The Minister of Agriculture Saparkhan Omarov, speaking about the development of the industry as a socially important institute that creates new jobs, noted that the State Program for the Development of the Agro-Industrial Complex was updated on behalf of the Head of State. The key tool of the program is anchor cooperation and the creation of a value chain. Now the state gives everyone the opportunity to create a family farm, become a member of the meat or dairy conveyor and receive a steady income.

In addition, as part of the productive employment program, rural residents can receive microcredits for the implementation of business projects in the agro-industrial complex at a remuneration rate of not more than 6% per annum, with a term of up to 7 years.

Continuing the theme of the press conference — execution of instructions of the Head of State, given at the XVIII Congress of the Nur Otan Party — the press conference moderator voiced a question to the PrimeMinister.kz audience related to the work on selecting promising villages for their modernization and infrastructure construction.

As Deputy Prime Minister Gulshara Abdykalikova noted, within the framework of the special project “Aul-El Besigi,” it is planned to identify 1,500 localities, for the development of which 30 billion tenge will be allocated annually.

The minister of agriculture said that, on the instructions of the President, the selection of promising villages is already underway. It will include many criteria such as job security, industry affiliation, etc.

At the end of the press conference, the correspondents of the Almaty channel and KTK appealed to representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructure Development, who were present in the hall, with a request to clarify the issue of providing rental housing to large families. Journalists were interested in the conditions of the program and the date of its launch.

The Chairman of the Committee for Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Ministry Markhabat Zhayymbetov said that there are 28 thousand large families in the queue for housing. For seven years, 6 thousand rental apartments will be built annually for large families. Thus, until 2025 more than 40 thousand rental apartments will be built.

However, work on the issuance of housing will be coordinated with the actualization of the queues. So, large families will be placed in a separate queue, which will increase the efficiency of the work being done to address their housing issues.

Zhayymbetov said that the rental housing program for low-income large families would be launched after the necessary changes were made to the regulatory legal acts in the second half of the year.

“If an apartment costs 8 million tenge, 800 thousand can be reimbursed through a housing certificate. Two percent for 19 years: a pre-loan will be reimbursed for eight years, it is 42 thousand tenge a month, and then a two-percent housing loan for the next nine years is about 27 thousand. I think it is very affordable,” added Zhayymbetov.

Recall that in his speech at the XVIII Regular Congress of the Nur Otan Party, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev emphasized that the main priority of the country is ensuring a decent standard of living for citizens and the development of Kazakhstan as a socially-oriented state. In 2019, more than 45% of all expenses of the republican budget were allocated to the social sphere. Funds will also be allocated from the National Fund to improve the quality of life and the well-being of citizens. Based on the instructions of the President, the Government of Kazakhstan is actively working to strengthen measures to improve the well-being of Kazakh families, provide housing and modernize education and health care, and improve living conditions in the regions and villages.

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