Expats with fake diplomas

By Zulfiya Bainekeeva

No man, no problem – that's what they think in the Migration police administration of the regional Internal Affairs Department, if to judge by very poor results of their audit of migration legislation violations conducted on employees of Atyrau branch of BMT ARGOS B.V. company.

DAVAI, KZ, DO SVIDANIYA

The official response that we received from the Migration police administration stated that their police officers spent more than two months trying to establish that violators of migration legislation - the employees of the foreign firm branch "BMT ARGOS B.V. in Atyrau, RoK", namely, Jan Beldon, Michele Herman, Nicholas Philp, Mark Van Der Putte, John Lindley, Sean McDermott and Robert Koenders "have left the territory of Kazakhstan".

But multiple violations of labor, migration, tax, even criminal legislation of RoK made by this small company registered in Netherlands – are more than enough and about that my colleague Laura Suleimenova has already wrote repeatedly (see: http://azh.kz/ru/new/view/29834; http://azh.kz/ru/news/view/29957; http://azh.kz/ru/news/view/30312).

Good, migration police admitted its powerlessness – so to say, “the Moor has done his duty, let him go", i.e.,expats are done and they can leave. But how to explain the powerlessness of our "competent" bodies before the company that constantly violates the requirements of the law? It didn't go anywhere, moreover, in the middle of all audits and even after a series of penalties imposed by court, nothing prevented this company that has serious problems with the legislation (including violations of tax legislation, the preliminary amount of taxes hidden from the state equals to 1,2 billion tenge), to participate in tender bid for the next 5 year contract for providing weather forecast services to NCOC N.V. And again to become the winner.

By the way, officially the Internal Affairs Department that have been delaying their answer for a long period of time only on September 7 provided the response about the results of investigation concerning the foreign employees who were illegally working in BMT ARGOS BV. And the day before that the head of Atyrau branch of BMT ARGOS BV - Jean Paul Lindeboom arrived to Atyrau for one day from the Netherlands, most likely, to pay the visit to the Migration police administration, specially for this matter.

JOKES OF GENIUSES

"BMT ARGOS BV in Atyrau, RoK" has 8 years history of having contract relations, first, with Agip KCO, later with its successor NCOC N.V., providing services of delivering remote data and images, weather forecasts, determination of water level, etc. Services, by the way, are not considered as exclusive and not even specific, but NCOC N.V. shows extraordinary loyalty to this contractor, and from year to year extends the contract with this company.

In addition, repeated publications about considerable differences in salaries of foreign and local specialists in this firm; labor relations executed in violation of laws; violations of the rules of attraction and use of foreign labor in RoK; undeclared incomes and financial operations in circumvention of the existing RoK tax requirements – all this didn't become the sufficient bases for closer attention of the consortium to its partner.

But in the story with this contractor the surprises are still coming. According to the general qualification requirements (ETKS), the expert has to have the higher professional (technical) education and length of service in trade on senior positions not less than 5 years.

It is difficult to believe, but foreign experts (under the terms of the contract with NCOC N.V. on these specific positions there should be expats), both citizens of Great Britain for years working in Atyrau branch of BMT ARGOS BV got their jobs by providing … counterfeit diplomas. In particular, the chief technical specialist Craig David Gray has the diploma of the London Institute of Applied Arts in "Enginering". Please pay attention, this is the diploma of the British higher educational institution. In fact, the word "enginering" should be written correctly as “engineering", and the word "enginering" in English does not exist. As well as the institute of applied arts doesn't exist in London. It's a joke, fake, an invention of two graduates of school for talented children who founded in 1974 for a whip-round the charity foundation in London the Institute of applied research – the abbreviation is LIAR. And "liar" is translated as "liar, deceiver". Jokers printed out diplomas with doctor's degrees, visually not different from the authentic ones, and honestly advertized in the newspaper, warning that those are counterfeits, and they will spend the collected money on charity. During 9 months they collected 50 thousand dollars, but as they say, “if you give the yacht a bad name, it will sail in that way". Well, they were not that clean: only a scanty part of that sum went actually for helping the needed. A certain part of faked diplomas went even to dishonest hands and later was sold for pennies, but the evidence of that old swindle emerged in Atyrau in the form of " education document" of the chief technical specialist whose salary was 6 000 dollars. By the way, at the British chat forums they warned: if in CVs the candidates have the LIAR diploma, then the candidate is the liar.

According to information contained in Coy Gavin Paul - chief technical specialist's diploma, he is the “enginer" as I am the Governor of Atyrau Oblast. It is obvious, that in both diplomas the gross grammatical blunder in such simple word was made intentionally by foreign swindlers who forged diplomas. However, compared to the other lovely detail, that is a trifle: born in 1978 Coy Gavin Paule graduated from the Chicago University in 1986, so he got his engineering diploma at the age of 8. “Genius!" – as my neigbour Aunty Galya would say in such cases, and then she will add: “in the manure".

However, it is obvious that Mr. Coy Gavin Paul wasn't a prodigy child. Here what the senior lawyer of legal department of the Chicago University Theodor Stamatakos responded to the request of checking the validity of that diploma: "In a database of graduates of the Chicago University Coy Gavin Paul or the person with a similar name was never registered. Moreover, in 1986 (year of issue of the "diploma" presented by you) the University had no engineering educational programs and, therefore, couldn't issue the diploma in any engineering discipline".

The regional Internal Affairs Department of Atyrau Obalst initiated a criminal case on the facts of issuing and using false diplomas.

Meanwhile those forgeries became the sufficient basis for issuing work permits by the Administration of coordination of employment and social programs of Atyrau Oblast.

PENALTY LIKE MOSQUITO'S STING

Perhaps, taking into account these small features with documents of its employees BMT ARGOS BV firm pays these experts in the field of "enginering" 5 times less than they actually receive as per the terms of the contract. After all, NCOC N.V. consortium pays to the branch of BMT ARGOS BV for each position - 31 670 dollars monthly, but "experts" receive on hands 6 - 6,8 thousand dollars. The difference between actual payments and salaries only to these 2 employees out of 14 - makes $50 720 a month that the company leaves to itself. In these circumstances the easy attitude of the company to violations of the rules of attraction and use of foreign labor in RoK could be explained. To recall, a fine for violation of the rules of staying in RoK is less than 50 thousand tenge per expert and 110 thousand tenge per manager. By the way, attracted BMT ARGOS BV foreign middle management experts already paid these fines and not just once. As for the director of BMT ARGOS BV it is better not to break any law- otherwise the fine could be dramatic, considering the size of his/her modest income. Judging by official payment sheets of this firm, the director-expat works in the Third World country for a minimum wage of 37 500 tenge. This is the lowest salary that you can declare in our country. This is simply discrimination! And who is this taxation entity with such salary? If only, of course, Mr. Jean Paul Lindeboom gets paid here in full. And after all, only air flights of this highly demanded expert and his short-term staying here (Lindeboom constantly stays in Netherlands, visiting Atyrau during business trips) cost NCOC N.V contractor much bigger sums.

… One can envy the luck of this group of shareholders (citizens of Netherlands, Britain and Ceylon) – so easily they get their income from a tiny branch in far and forgotten Atyrau, sitting in clean and law-abiding Holland.