A meeting of the Public Council of Samruk-Kazyna JSC was held in Astana where the Fund reported on the results of activities related to strengthening social stability at enterprises and the activities of the Corporate Ombudsmen Institution.

The Ombudsman of the Fund Serikbai Trumov presented the interim results of the work to the Public Council headed by Bolat Zhamishev. He spoke about the essence of the Corporate Ombudsmen Institution, as well as the results of interaction with colleagues in Portfolio Companies. To date, there are nine of them in Samruk-Energy JSC, Kazakhtelecom JSC, Kazpost JSC, NC KazMunayGas JSC, NAC Kazatomprom JSC, KEGOC JSC and NC Kazakhstan Temir Zholy JSC. And since the appointment of the Ombudsman of Samruk-Kazyna JSC in March of this year, Serikbai Trumov initiated the creation of the Advisory Body – the Council of Ombudsmen which has already held several working meetings. At the same time, a hotline and a call center “Nysana” were organized jointly with the CSCC (The Center for Social Cooperation and Communications). And thus, more than 9 thousand appeals of employees were accepted, of which 811 were recognized as relevant.

Within seven months of this year, the number of strikes has fallen by almost five times, and the number of potential risk zones has halved. This was announced at the meeting of the Public Council by Gibrat Auganov, the Managing Director for Corporate Governance, Social and Labor Relations and Occupational Safety of Samruk-Kazyna JSC. He stressed that out of 12 cases of strikes, 9 occurred in contracting companies, and only 3 - in Subsidiaries and Dependent Organizations. For comparison, 57 strikes occurred during the same period last year, and 68 potential risk zones were identified.

According to Auganov, many risks were avoided thanks to the advance notification of Portfolio Companies. “We have changed the methodology for determining the level of social stability. Now the research in the group of companies is carried out on a semi-annual basis. The new methodology also takes into account issues that reveal problem points before they resulted in conflicts. We have the opportunity to prevent social unrest, and not to solve their consequences,” Gibrat Auganov said.

Currently, the Fund’s activities to ensure social stability are developing in 4 main areas:

• Research and Analytics (working conditions and loyalty, material well-being and others);

• Social Stability Monitoring Center (collection, processing, initial verification, registration and prompt notification of prerequisites or facts of social tension, crisis situations);

• IR - Industrial Relations (improvement of sanitary-epidemiological, social and psychological well-being of production personnel);

• Social and Communication projects (reconciliation institutions (ombudsmen, trade unions, mediators and conciliation commissions, youth policy development).

Following the Meeting, the Participants received a number of recommendations from the Public Council of the Fund and decided on further steps towards increasing the level of Social Stability and strengthening the principles of social partnership in Samruk-Kazyna JSC.

The Public Council of Samruk-Kazyna JSC was established in December 2021 through an open competitive selection of candidates and consists of 9 members (7 representatives from civil society and 2 representatives from the Fund).