Kazakhstan: Statistical Error
Kazakhstan, Politics and SocietyOne Comment
Translation of Adam’s post
Yesterday the Kazakhstani court sanctioned the arrest of Nurman Bayanov, the Deputy Chairman of the Statistics Agency on charges of misappropriation of the funds, assigned to the national census [ru]:
“There was total of $7.6 million allocated for the census. As a result of investigation it was determined that in fact only $2.2 million were spent for this purpose. The remaining funds were plundered”.
Furthermore, another Deputy Chairman of the Statistics Agency and two prominent businessmen - one of them, Serik Turzhanov, is the Vice-President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a well-known public person - were arrested too as accomplices.
On this subject Megakhuimyak wonders [ru]:
If out of $7.6 million allocated for the country population count there were $5.4 million stolen, how would the measurement error change (usually it is around 2-3%)?
This news wasn’t a surprise for pycm [ru]:
Well, it could be expected, taking into account the way how poorly the census was held this year.
He also recollects:
Besides, we are 72 years away from 1937 [the peak of J. Stalin repressions]. 72 is six multiplied by twelve. Isn’t there some mystical recurrence and regularity?
Dass noted that [ru]:
When a top-ranking official in our country is accused of corruption, abuse of power, theft etc., some people automatically start assuming that this person is a political prisoner. They think: “Why is it exactly this man, who has got targeted, if everybody there [in power] do the same?”. It is no wonder that from this point of view any real anti-corruption action would be perceived as redistribution of assets or crackdown on dissent.
At the same time thousand-pa pessimistically notes [ru]:
The state machine’s entire mechanism is now involved in repressions, and any hint of misdoing is considered as a “Hunt!” signal. And once “Hunt!” has been said, nothing can stop executors from punishing the object. The power punishes as enthusiastically, as it plunders the budget. What else can you expect from the country where “law and order” is just a fig-leaf that covers huge interests of a small group of majors?
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