A scandal has erupted in Kazakhstan over the sale of housing queue places. Lyazzat Ibragimova, head of Otbasy Bank, commented on the situation at a government briefing, where bank employees were moving people up the housing queue for a fee, reports infohub.kz.
Ibragimova confirmed that bank employees provided illegal services, including moving people up the housing queue. She stressed that the bank itself identified the violations and reported them. "This was an isolated case. It happened in April-May 2025. A person was in the queue, but to get into a more preferential category, he changed his category to 'Families raising children with disabilities.' The employment contracts with the two employees were terminated at the bank's initiative, and applications were filed to bring them to criminal responsibility. Criminal cases have been opened and they are currently under investigation. This involves fraudulent actions by employees of one regional branch and a business analyst from the central office," she said.
According to Ibragimova, the incident occurred before the bank switched to a new information system. "This was a big lesson for us: during digitalization, we need to do a huge amount of work to ensure that all digital traces remain – who logged in under which login, and what they did. There was no damage; the apartment that was distributed was stopped at the stage of signing the loan agreement and returned. It was again included in the housing distribution," she explained.
Earlier, Ibragimova spoke about the pace of providing housing to those on the waiting list from the state fund.