On November 11, 2022, within the Initiative for establishment of Business Ombudsman Institution in BiH, representatives of West East Forum for Ethics and Compliance held an online meeting with Acting Business Ombudsman of Business Ombudsman Institute in Kyrgyz Republic, Mr. Nurlan Musuraliev in order to talk about their experience in establishment of this institution in Kyrgyzstan.
Business Ombudsman Institute in Kyrgyz Republic started operating in February 2020, and at the very beginning they faced the challenges in their work since they needed to close the office due to COVID 19 pandemic. Mr. Nurlan Musuraliev kindly shared their experience in working in these challenging circumstances and provided valuable information about the process of establishment of Business Ombudsman Institute in Kyrgyz Republic and key principles for its establishment.
Mr. Musuraliev stated that the main task of the Business Ombudsman Institution is to help the business community with all the individual problems they face in correlation with public institutions. BOI is not in charge for B2B cases. BOI also aims to protect the businesses community through active participation in the processes of drafting laws, by giving its comments and recommendations. BOI works to improve the existing legislative framework in the sphere of development and protection of the business community, as well. If the case that BOI is involved into enters into court proceeding, BOI is entitled to give their independent opinion in court.
According to the Annual Report for 2021, BOI Kyrgyzstan team helped to save or return to business $20,990,447.65. It is important to notice that sometimes is not possible to measure a financial value to a complainant’s issue.
According to Mr. Musuraliev, the most important principles by which BOI should be guided in its work are fair treatment, independence, transparency and political neutrality. Mr. Musuraliev emphasized that the institution’s independence from the government is very important because of the purpose for which the BOI was established.
According to Mr. Musuraliev’s opinion, it is advantage if Business Ombudsman is a foreigner because it is an additional guarantee that he/she has no acquaintances in that country, as well as that he is completely independent in his work. It is very important that the Government cannot and must not be involved in the work of the BO, i.e. the decision-making process, it must not influence the final recommendations, as well.
The WEFEC team would like to thank Mr. Musuraliev and the Business Ombudsman Institute in Kyrgyz Republic for valuable information and advice, as well as the support they provided for the Business Ombudsman Initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“This project was funded by a grant from the United States Department of State. The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the author[s] and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of State”.