Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Population Birzhan Nurymbetov, at a government session chaired by Prime Minister Askar Mamin, reported on the implementation of the President's instructions in social and labor spheres, voiced in the Address to the people "Kazakhstan in a New Reality: Time for Action" dated Sep. 1, 2020.

The Head of State instructed the government, together with the National Bank, to adopt all the necessary regulatory legal acts by the end of this year and carry out preparatory work on the use by citizens of part of their savings for the purchase of housing, medical treatment or for transferring to the management of financial companies.

There is an approved solution. Today, 721 thousand Kazakhstanis will be able to use part of their pension funds, which will amount to about 1.4 trillion tenge.

"Among them there are about 530 thousand working citizens with pension savings exceeding the sufficiency threshold, more than 178 thousand pensioners who have pension savings, and 13 thousand people who have entered into a pension annuity agreement with an insurance company," the minister explained.

By the end of the year, the following measures will be implemented to fulfill the instructions of the Head of State:

• Adoption of the draft Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts on the Recovery of Economic Growth.’’
• Approval of the Rules for the Implementation of Targeted Payments from the United National Pensions Fund.
• Approval of the Rules for Improving Housing Conditions at the Expense of Pension Payments.
• Approval of the Rules for Referring Citizens to Receive Medical Care.

The Head of State, in his annual address to the people of Kazakhstan, instructed the Government to start developing the Social Code of the country.

Today in Kazakhstan there is a wide range of social security measures for the population. Relations in the field of social security are governed by a large number of legislative acts — 17 laws, more than 100 by-laws. The basis for calculating the amount of payments in the field of social security are various indicators: minimum wage, minimum wage, subsistence minimum. Homogeneous social relations are regulated by various legislative acts.

By the second quarter of 2021, it is planned to develop the concept of the Social Code, by the end of 2021 — the draft code itself.

The Head of State instructed to fully digitize the processes of assigning pensions and benefits. As of Sep. 1, 2020, 34 out of 41 public services of the Ministry of Labor were transferred to electronic format (83%), including 14 services in a proactive format.

“Today the main problem is the incompleteness of digital versions of some documents, especially of the Soviet era, in databases,” Nurymbetov said.

Government agencies, together with Ministry of Digitalization, need to work out the issue of the possibility and timing of digitizing a number of documents by the end of 2020.

President Tokayev instructed to take measures to digitalize social payments. For this, it is necessary to introduce a digital ‘social wallet’ of a citizen, as well as create an appropriate distribution system.

Today, 39 types of social payments are made from the republican budget for a total amount of over 3.4 trillion tenge per year. All payments are made through second-tier banks to the recipients' accounts.

As Nurymbetov noted, the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Digitalization, as well as Ministry of Trade and Integration plan to complete the implementation of the mechanism for paying targeted social assistance through a digital ‘social wallet’ by the end of 2020 and launch it in a pilot mode. The implementation of a digital social wallet based on IIN will also be worked out.

In addition, the Ministry of Labor, National Bank, Agency for Regulation and Development of Financial Market, Ministry of Trade and Integration will develop mechanisms for the payment of pensions and benefits from the republican and local budgets, the State Fiscal Service, the United National Pension Fund through the digital "social wallet" in 2021-2022.