Two Thirds of Kazakh Census Money Stolen - Police

The census cost the government 1.14 billion tenge ($7.6 million). A financial police spokesman said the actual cost was 379 million tenge.

Officials at Kazakhstan's state statistics agency have stolen at least two thirds of state cash earmarked for this year's national census, the Central Asian country's financial police said on Wednesday.

Kazakhstan, a steppe nation five times the size of France, carried out a nationwide count of all people and households in February and March this year. The census cost the government 1.14 billion tenge ($7.6 million).

"The investigation has found out that the actual cost of the census was 379 million tenge," financial police spokesman Murat Zhumanbai told reporters.

"The remaining 764.8 million tenge were embezzled by agency officials and managers of private companies."

Zhumanbai said the police had arrested one of the deputy heads of the statistics agency and detained one other official.

Kazakhstan is an oil producing nation on the Ca ASTANA, June 3 (Reuters) - Officials at Kazakhstan's state statistics agency have stolen at least two thirds of state cash earmarked for this year's national census, the Central Asian country's financial police said on Wednesday.

Kazakhstan, a steppe nation five times the size of France, carried out a nationwide count of all people and households in February and March this year. The census cost the government 1.14 billion tenge ($7.6 million).

"The investigation has found out that the actual cost of the census was 379 million tenge," financial police spokesman Murat Zhumanbai told reporters.

"The remaining 764.8 million tenge were embezzled by agency officials and managers of private companies."

Zhumanbai said the police had arrested one of the deputy heads of the statistics agency and detained one other official.

Kazakhstan is an oil producing nation on the Caspian Sea criticised in the West for not doing enough to curb corruption.

A number of senior Kazakh officials, including heads of strategic state-run oil and uranium companies, have been arrested on corruption or embezzlement charges within the last year in what the government has described as a campaign to weed out corruption.