Kazakhstan audit chamber proposes cutting pension and benefit spending by 191 billion tenge

September 23, 2026 at 03:15 PM2 min

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Kazakhstan's Supreme Audit Chamber proposed reducing budget spending on pensions and benefits by 191.37 billion tenge for 2027–2029. Auditors say part of the funds may have been counted twice. The proposal does not reduce payment amounts, only budget allocations.

Key Facts

The Supreme Audit Chamber proposes cutting pension and benefit spending by 191.37 billion tenge over 2027–2029.
Total planned spending on pensions and benefits for the three-year budget is 22.18 trillion tenge.
The largest proposed adjustment is 54.2 billion tenge for solidarity pensions over three years.
The Ministry of Labor reduced the projected number of benefit recipients from 2.91 million in 2026 to 1.97 million in 2027.
Unspent funds for pensions and benefits totaled 95.7 billion tenge in 2024 and 124.2 billion tenge in 2025.

Proposed Budget Cuts

The Supreme Audit Chamber identified a possible double count of 191.3 billion tenge in pension and benefit allocations. The risk arose from not separating payments for previous years from current-year funds transferred later. Auditors propose reducing planned spending by 59.2 billion tenge in 2027, 64 billion in 2028, and 68.1 billion in 2029. The largest adjustments are 54.2 billion tenge for solidarity pensions and 48.1 billion for disability benefits. The chamber stressed the proposal does not reduce pension or benefit amounts, only budgeted sums.

Recipient Count Methodology

The Ministry of Labor applied a means-testing principle to ten benefit types for the 2027 budget. The projected number of recipients fell from 2.91 million in 2026 to 1.97 million in 2027, a drop of nearly 944,000 people. Auditors found insufficient calculations explaining who would be excluded and how means-testing would be applied. The chamber noted spending was calculated without an approved methodology after the December 2025 methodology expired on August 21, 2026. Auditors propose developing a unified mechanism for forecasting the number of social benefit recipients.