A gift with a state facade: what Nurasyl Medeu is really handing to the state

An empty lecture hall — Illustrative photo. Source: Paul The Writer / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

On 17 October Nurasyl Medeu, the 23-year-old founder of the Kazakh National University of Sport (KNUS), announced that he was handing the university over to the state free of charge. The news was presented as a philanthropic gesture, but within a week it had gathered questions: who built the campus, who owned the university, what exactly passes to the state and on what terms. Medeu himself answered some of them and journalists answered others; the main terms of the deal have still not been published.

Below is what is known and what remains unknown.

What was announced

At a ceremony at the university Medeu said: "This is not a sale, not a transfer into trust management and not a forced step, but a free gift to my native country." He said he had been working towards this decision since the university was founded and that founder's grants for current students would be kept: the money for the entire period of study is already in the university's account, and the obligations will be secured legally. The university started in 2021 as the Academy of Physical Culture and Mass Sport with 150 students; according to the university, almost 5,000 people now study there.

Who exactly will take over the university — a ministry, a state company or another body — when the transfer will be formalised and what it will include have not been announced.

Who owned the university and who owns the building

According to Ulysmedia, Medeu holds 95% stakes in two universities, KNUS and the National Research University of Artificial Intelligence; the remaining 5% in each belongs to state companies. The transfer decision concerns only the sports university. Respublika specifies that the state's stake in KNUS is held through Kazsportinvest JSC. Both outlets write that Medeu is the son of Kurultai deputy Dana Medeuova and, according to them, the great-nephew of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev; Medeu himself, Respublika reports, responded that he is grateful for the family he was born into.

The key fact for understanding the deal came from the founder himself. The new campus building, which Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov visited in July, was built with budget money, and the university, according to the government, was opened on the President's instructions. "The building belongs entirely to the state. The building was built with budget money. We are the operator of this building," Medeu said, explaining that the private LLP works there under a trust management agreement. According to him, KNUS pays for furniture, equipment, staff and upkeep of the campus, and 60% of income from commercial use of the premises goes back to the budget.

So the building the country is receiving as a gift already belongs to it.

Note. Trust management is an agreement under which an owner (here, the state) hands property to another party to manage while remaining its owner. The manager gets the right to use the property and earn income on agreed terms, but not ownership.

Irony instead of comment

The most prominent reaction came from economist Aidarkhan Kusainov. Having watched the university's promotional video, he wrote that KBTU, Narxoz, AlmaU, Satbayev University and AUES, which have trained specialists for decades, had been left behind: in his words, the sports university overtook them "in two or three years". He compared the transfer to Zuckerberg giving Facebook to the US government and called it handing the state a business success won through sleepless nights and risk. The post is built on exaggeration: the author makes no accusation but invites readers to compare the timescale, the scale of the campus and the founder's age for themselves.

What remains unknown

If the building belongs to the state and the state already owns 5% of the university, then, judging by Medeu's explanations, the gift consists of the LLP's 95% stake — the operating company with its staff, programmes, equipment, brand and grant obligations. None of the terms that would make it possible to judge who gains from such a transfer has been made public. The terms of the trust management agreement under which the private university worked in a state building, and the amount it paid into the budget, are unknown. The value of the equipment and assets KNUS invested and the LLP's debts at the time of transfer are unknown. It is unclear who will fund the university after the transfer and on what basis, whether the current management team will remain, and what will happen to the National Research University of Artificial Intelligence, in which Medeu holds the same 95%.

Until these questions are answered, how one judges the "gift" depends on whose word one takes. The sources cite no official comment on the transfer from the Ministry of Tourism and Sport or the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Why it matters

A scheme in which the state builds a building and a private operator works in it is not in itself prohibited: everything depends on the terms. In the case of KNUS the terms of the agreement were published neither when the campus opened nor when the gift was announced — at least not in the sources this piece relies on. That is why the same news reads both as a philanthropic gesture and as an occasion for irony.

What next

The official transfer document is what to watch for: who takes over the university, in what form and with what obligations. A separate question is the fate of Medeu's second university, the National Research University of Artificial Intelligence.

List of sources used

Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.

#Sport #Universities #Education #Analysis

Subscribe to our Telegram channel and be the first to know the news