Hospital bed fraud uncovered in Kazakhstan
Tengrinews.kz - A chief accountant at an infectious diseases hospital in Kyzylorda has been arrested on suspicion of large-scale embezzlement, citing the Financial Monitoring Agency.
Authorities say the accountant inflated the price of medical beds during a procurement process, using fake bids prepared by his wife to manipulate the tender.
“As a result, the hospital signed a contract with a company to purchase 220 medical beds for a total of 259 million tenge, or about 1.2 million tenge per bed. In reality, the market price of a bed did not exceed 460,000 tenge — roughly a third of the amount claimed,” the agency said.
The unjustified overpricing cost the state an estimated 129 million tenge.
Investigators have frozen assets worth 111 million tenge belonging to the suspects. Authorities also said the full amount of the damage has been reimbursed.
The accountant has been placed in pretrial detention for two months. The case has been forwarded to court.
Earlier, a 4-billion-tenge fraud scheme was uncovered in Astana.