Recently, the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov signed a decree establishing an interdepartmental working group to promote and provide methodological assistance to land amnesty commissions in local state administrations.
The head of the republic instructed, among other things, to study the legal acts relating to land amnesty in Kyrgyzstan, and to make proposals for their improvement, as well as to take measures to increase the efficiency of the commissions, in a period of two weeks. The working group will report monthly directly to Sadyr Japarov, who, in addition, established the personal responsibility of the heads of state bodies and local officials for the proper execution of his order.
According to experts, the president has thus tilted the course of land amnesty towards manual control. This happened because of corruption, which naturally absorbed the implementation of an important social project. Which, naturally, caused the indignation of tens of thousands of ordinary Kyrgyz people.
The head of state signed the law regulating land and legal relations in April 2022. The document puts an end to many stories about the seizure of land and the construction of housing on it, allowing citizens to s ensure ownership of disputed real estate. As part of the amnesty, the authorities, according to official figures, should legalize about 30,000 hectares of agricultural land, 117,000 houses and 15,000 foundations.
After some time, the government of the Kyrgyz Republic approved the regulation on the land amnesty procedure. The document was adopted in order to “quickly solve the problems of issuing state acts on the right to private ownership of agricultural land built with individual residential buildings without a permit.” Soon, these same commissions were created in mayor’s offices and local governments across the state.
According to the regulations, the commissions accept and consider applications and necessary documents, form lists of candidates and send them to the territorial divisions of authorized state bodies. The latter must investigate whether, for example, there are objects of historical and cultural heritage on the site or something that negatively affects human health or the environment, and give a positive or negative answer. The final decision, based on the commission’s conclusion, is taken by the local state administration or mayor’s office within five days.
This, of course, is an approximate description, there are many other details, but the main thing is approximately as follows.
So what happened that the president was forced to take the course of land amnesty under his personal control? As the experts say, nothing unusual, everything is business as usual. As soon as the dishonest officials had an opportunity – which, probably, it is not necessary to explain – how they immediately took advantage of it. To the detriment of the common cause.
The deputies of the Parliament of the Kyrgyz Republic were the first to sound the alarm, to which the Kyrgyz people began to complain. People’s deputies spoke about the bribes candidates are forced to pay to legalize land and houses faster. Plus, those who shouldn’t fall under land amnesty after that. “Those who gave money have already received their ‘red books’, and those who don’t donate don’t receive it,” complains MP Akbokon Tashtanbekov.
According to parliamentarian Elvira Surabaldiyeva, Kyrgyz people in some districts of the Chui region of the Kyrgyz Republic cannot legalize their housing due to corruption by local officials. “A person has lived in the house for 20 years. And now it turns out that his land plot has three owners. State bodies falsified documents and sold land plots to several people. This problem arose in 30% of the houses which are now subject to amnesty”, explained the people’s deputy.
MP Balbak Tulobaev, in turn, called the land amnesty a “feeder for corrupt officials”. “Representatives of the commissions are taking money. The parliament and the president have passed a law, but the work is not continuing on the ground. So, perhaps we can turn to the head of the State Committee for national security, Kamchybek Tashiev?” He asked.
The result of the lawmakers’ accusations was interference in the law enforcement process. And then every day then new information about the detention or the opening of a criminal case. Here are some of them: “Employees of the state institution “Cadastre” extorted nearly half a million soms… Detained after receiving 30,000 soms”, “Officials of the Chui region , having falsified documents, in collusion with members of the commission transferred 66.8 hectares of irrigated arable land for agricultural purposes to A criminal case was opened”, “An employee of the Issyk-Ata akimiat received land illegally under a land amnesty”, “Aiyl kenesh deputies were detained in the Jalal-Abad region for the illegal sale of land.”
In this context, the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov took several decisions which should improve the situation. In addition to creating an inter-ministerial working group that will report to him personally on the progress of land amnesty in the country, the head of state ordered to dismiss his authorized representative in the Chui region Nuril Alymbaev and Sokuluk District Akim Kurbanbek Aitibaev, who the president says has not taken enough steps to implement the Land Relations Regulation Law.
Sadyr Japarov also asked to quickly resolve the issue of excluding from the provision on the land amnesty procedure a clause that prevented the full implementation of the document.
In the meantime
Commissions under the Bishkek district administrations continue to accept documents for land amnesty objects. This was reported to the town hall.
According to the municipality, 417 appeals have already been approved: in the Leninsky district – 220, Oktyabrsky – 76, Sverdlovsky – 65, Pervomaisky – 56.
The town hall reminds that the following documents are necessary to apply: a copy of the applicant’s identity documents; a copy of the land title and title deeds (if applicable); copies of the technical passport; notarized power of attorney of representatives; documents (if any) confirming the acquisition of an object (documents confirming the acquisition of a land amnesty object or relevant receipts, utility bills, property tax receipts, powers of attorney and other documents related to the objects land amnesty); written consent of adjacent land users for plots of land in settlements.
Documents are accepted daily from 09:00 to 18:00 at the address: microdistrict “Tunguch”, 57 (Department of individual housing construction and town planning).
Telephones: 0312 979297, 0312 97 94 54.
