Representatives of the Union of Disinfection Specialists of Kazakhstan have sent an open letter to Minister of Healthcare Akmaral Alnazarova. Businesses are alleging a conflict of interest and demanding the withdrawal of the state enterprise RSE on REM "National Center for Expertise" (NCE) from the commercial market of preventive disinfection, reports Todayinfo.
According to the authors of the appeal, NCE is simultaneously part of the sanitary-epidemiological control system and provides paid services – disinfection, disinsection, deratization, and laboratory research. Entrepreneurs believe that in this situation, the state acts as both a regulator and a market participant.
Previously, the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition issued NCE a directive to exclude commercial services from its charter. The issue was considered in courts, but the Supreme Court overturned the decisions, citing an insufficient number of licensed organizations at the beginning of 2025.
"From a business perspective, this is crystal clear: the state controls the sphere and simultaneously earns in the same sphere, not allowing private business to earn. One can explain this as much as desired by 'the interests of the population,' but entrepreneurs see something else – an imbalance. And society is also beginning to understand this. One cannot demand that the private sector adhere to rules and at the same time leave a quasi-state enterprise the right to take over this market. This should not happen in a rule-of-law state. Businesses face strict requirements. But the state participant receives an advantage by default," the entrepreneurs' appeal states.
Despite numerous appeals from entrepreneurs and identified facts of the dominant presence of the quasi-state enterprise in this market, the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition has not taken any significant measures. Although the antimonopoly body has the right to appeal to the prosecutor's office to challenge judicial acts if there are grounds to believe that such decisions negatively affect the state of competition.
Meanwhile, the market situation has changed. According to the union, there are now about 300 licensed private companies operating in the field of disinfection, disinsection, and deratization in the country. This means the market has formed, but the state continues to dominate it, using administrative and infrastructural advantages, and the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition does nothing about it.
As a result, a situation is developing where the state simultaneously acts as a regulator, controller, and market participant. The entrepreneurial community demands a re-analysis of the market for preventive disinfection, disinsection, and deratization services, as well as measures to restrict the participation of quasi-state entities in this sector of the economy in accordance with the principles of developing a competitive environment.
We found that NCE has been operating for almost 11 years, and it indeed secures a significant number of disinfection contracts across the country. The organization has over a thousand government contracts for various services: from disinfection, laboratory research, medical examinations of employees, and other paid services.
For example, in 2026, the company concluded several large government contracts in the East Kazakhstan region (1.1 billion tenge, of which 182 million tenge is planned for disinfection), Karaganda region (1.4 billion in total and 90 million tenge for disinfection), and Almaty (1.5 billion in total and specifically 226 million for disinfection services).
