During an online press conference on July 23, akim (mayor) of Almaty Bakytzhan Sagintayev said 38 billion tenge has been allocated from the local budget to fight coronavirus, Toppress.kz correspondent reports citing zakon.kz.
Speaking about the money we have been allocating… we started this work during the state of emergency. Initially, we were required to provide personal protection equipment, keep food prices low and disinfect the city. At that time, our expenses amounted to almost 17 billion tenge, he noted.
Bakytzhan Sagintayev stressed the current situation “is more complicated”, therefore, the city budget was revised and additional funds have been allocated to fight the virus with cuts being made in the construction sector.
10 billion tenge has been spent on stabilizing drug provision. Of these, 5 billion tenge was used to provide medicines to the city’s pharmacies and 5 billion – to provide our clinics and hospitals with drugs, he said.
The funds will be used to purchase equipment and arrange disinfection procedures and accommodation of medical workers. In addition, the local authorities will build a 350-bed modular infectious diseases clinic.
