By Vladimir Putin
I have taken a number of recent steps to minimise corruption risks at all levels of government and have expanded the list of state officials who must present information on their incomes and property. All municipal heads and heads of state institutions and state-owned companies must now declare their incomes.
Starting this year, I also introduced measures to monitor big expenses by officials. Senior civil servants are now prohibited from holding and using foreign bank accounts, deposits and financial instruments. These laws were passed in December 2012 and May 2013. On April 5 this year, I passed a new law that changes public procurement rules, starting at the planning stage and finishing with checks on the activities of the agencies and officials placing the orders.
Anti-corruption expert evaluation of laws has become widespread practice. This helps to reduce corruption risks by excluding from the outset unlawful or ambiguous provisions that create loopholes for arbitrary action and abuse by officials.
I am introducing clear administrative rules for provision of state services, and I am limiting possibilities to carry out all manner of inspections and other unjustified interference in business activity.
The work to implement the ‘roadmaps’ for improving the business climate is also one of our systemic anti-corruption measures. Russian businesspeople and foreign experts have noted our progress in this area.
My experts make varying estimates, but I have, for example, the annual World Bank report on the business climate in different countries, which has only just come out. The report’s authors have moved Russia up to 92nd place on this rating. It’s not the best result, but let us remember that in 2011, Russia was in 120th place.
I need to keep moving steadily in this direction and remember that the better the business climate and the more effective and optimum are our administrative procedures, the less room there will be for corruption and the more opportunity there will be for economic growth and for developing our country in general.
According to the Interior Ministry, the number of corruption cases brought to light fell this year. More than 34,000 cases were registered in the first half of 2012, but this number was down to 29,501 for the first half of 2013. These figures require careful analysis of course. Given the hidden and latent nature of corruption crimes, we cannot afford to be complacent. We need to study the statistics carefully. I hope the prosecutor’s office is following this closely.
The number of people charged with taking bribes increased by almost a third – by 32 percent – over the same period. Nearly 700 people – 692, to be precise – were found guilty of taking bribes over the first half of 2013. At the same time, what I particularly want to note is that only 8 percent of those guilty of taking bribes were sentenced to actual terms of imprisonment. Most of them were ordered to pay fines, which criminals get out of paying by making use of all sorts of legal loopholes.
The decisions to liberalise penalties in this area were adopted back in 2011, as you know. We all agreed with them then and hoped in this way to appeal to the conscience of those who violate the law. Practice suggests though that this liberalisation is not working the way we hoped.
Let me say again that state anti-corruption policy must rest on the principle of inevitable punishment for these kinds of crimes. I must take firm and consistent action in all areas of the fight against corruption.
Let me draw your attention to several aspects.
First, I need to work more effectively to weed out corruption in the government system. This has to start at the farthest approaches, in other words, with the selection of candidates for this or that position. Anyone wanting to become a municipal or government civil servant must understand very clearly that this goes hand in hand with tough anti-corruption requirements and particular restrictions that they must comply with strictly. My position is that people entering the civil service take on these obligations voluntarily. This is each person’s voluntary choice.
For their part, the heads of state agencies at all levels must bear personal responsibility for the arrival of people on their staff who see the civil service as a means for unlawful personal enrichment.
Second, I need to take a tougher line to prevent corruption in the law enforcement and judicial systems. Corruption in the organisations that are supposed to guarantee law and order seriously undermines public trust in the authorities and the policies they implement.
Third, analysis of prosecutors’ and investigators’ work and the results of independent studies show that a number of areas are particularly vulnerable to corruption. This includes above all the housing and utilities sector, the consumer market, damage assessments for compensation claims following natural disasters, and the construction and repair of various sites.
According to our institutes, including the Interior Ministry’s institute, businesspeople hoping to secure profitable contracts in these sectors need to pay kickbacks of 30 and sometimes even 50 percent. In some regions the ‘bribe and kickback rates’ are well known and are even adjusted for inflation. It would be enough to make you laugh if it were not so sad.
Of course, one of my most important tasks is to raise people’s legal awareness. Anti-corruption standards of behaviour based on knowledge of general rights and obligations must be the norm for everyone. The public and the business community are right to demand that the authorities comply strictly with these rules. At the same time though, they sometimes stand on passively and watch, and indeed sometimes even nudge the authorities into corruption in a bid to ‘settle’ matters related to their own business interests.
The law now contains provisions requiring all business and non-profit organisations to take anticorruption measures. Let me stress though that legal provisions and having the demands set out on paper are not enough. I need to create a public climate that rejects corruption. I have already spoken about this many times. Among other things, this requires me to build reliable channels for feedback between the public and authorities. Every signal about corruption cases or signs of corruption should get an adequate response.
I can make my anti-corruption work more effective and achieve real results in reducing corruption in society only through consistent, systemic action. All of the measures I take must be of precisely this kind.
There can be no growth without abolishing huge regulation, huge taxation, and huge political corruption. Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com, @Venitis
Medvedev says all levels of the state should provide more open data as public control over government tenders is a crucial part of a transparent government system. Medvedev says: This must be the enlargement of the volume of open data about the activities of authorities at all levels. This is the realization of the national plan of introducing the mechanisms of open state management and this is the constant public control in the sphere of state purchase and state investment. It is important to not only analyze draft laws and government programs, but also to monitor the legal practice on the basis of opinions of people who represent various social groups, professional communities and regions.
Russian authorities have uncovered a number of corrupt schemes with the help of ordinary people. This includes the previously widespread practice of deliberately altering data in state tenders published in the internet by replacing Cyrillic symbols with Latin and vice versa to make search impossible and to limit the number of bidders.
Public control also made it possible to uncover large-scale graft in the Russian medical sector – it turned out that many officials were receiving kickbacks for the purchase of expensive MRT hardware for large medical centers. The corruption reached as high as the Healthcare Ministry and the Control Directorate of the Presidential Property Department and several top officials were detained during a 2010 probe. When Medvedev, who was Russian President at that time, learned about the scandal he called the embezzlement shameless theft and ordered the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General’s Office to spare no effort in uncovering details of the scheme.
A Greek level of corruption has fettered the business activity and daily life of Putinland, and Russia's dependence on natural resources has only deepened during the years of Putin's rule. In April 2010, Putin signed a decree that suspended the publication of information about the assets, revenue, and expenditure of Russia’s two oil funds. This allowed him to manipulate government’s finances, while launching a pre-election spending spree, siphon off money for friends and allies, and camouflage bribes, kickbacks, and hush money. He boosted military and police spending by 35 percent, and promised future pay and pension increases for the armed forces, teachers and doctors. Putinlandians have been fleeced, pure and simple. Putin, a former penniless KGB agent, is now billionaire, thanks to bribes and kickbacks!
Russia is characterized by a tradition of a huge government. Political corruption is proportional to the square of the size of the government. That's why the political corruption of Russia is out of control. Political corruption is a major problem that every Russian can see. State purchase contracts have become the current breeding grounds for corruption. Russians have no confidence in a Russokleptocrat, such as Putin, who says high-sounding words about the national good but at the same time takes his money and assets out of Russia.
Russians think political corruption is out of control. Russokleptocrats are in cahoots with Orthodox mafias and Orthodox oligarchs. The four main Orthodox mafias are the Tambov Gang, Siloviki Clan, Izmaylovskaya Gang, and Solntsevskaya Brotherhood. Their activities focus on political corruption, church corruption, protection money, blackmail, drugs trade, shipping, commodity trade, and natural resources. Orthodoxy's circle of tycoons, such as aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, banking magnate Vitaly Malkin, and shipping magnates, have been investigated by Europol many times. Russokleptocrats use the Orthodox Church to control Putinlandians and influence Orthodox Christians all over the world.
Putin has developed a critical mass system for brainwashing Russians. Every single day, Putin invites all kinds of fireflies, important influential people from all professions and all industries. Squandering the Russian taxpayers’ hard-earned money, the Russian government pays all travelling and entertainment expenses of Putin’s fireflies. Putin, instead of doing his presidential duties, wastes his time and uses government facilities for personal propaganda. Putin’s fireflies influence hoi polloi of Russia to the tipping point of electoral victories of Putin.
Since Putin first took office a dozen years ago corruption has worsened. Investigations of Russokleptocrats have been making headlines throughout Russia. The most prominent casualty at this point has been the long-reigning defense minister from Putin's former cabinet, Anatoli Serdjukov, who tried to bypass Putin in the distribution of military kicbacks. The message is clear, nobody can bypass Putin! Serdyukov has made billions of euros from bribes in defense industry privatizations. But so have many other Russokleptocrats, such as the head of the Russian Space Agency and the Health Minister Tatyana Golikova.
Agriculture minister Elena Skrynnik has practiced extreme nepotism and her kith and kin have seen their personal wealth skyrocket with bribes and kickbacks of billion euros. Elena Skrynnik owns luxury homes in France and other European countries. Oleg Donskich, Skrynnik's right-hand man, has a warrant out for his arrest and has left Russia. Leonid Novitskiy, Skrynnik's brother, a cross-country rally driver, became the head of Rosagroleasing, a large agricultural company supervised by his sister.
Investigators have summoned Skrynnik for questioning in a large-scale embezzlement case within the Rosagroleasing company. The state owned company leases agricultural machinery. Rosagroleasing entered several contracts with companies founded by Oleg Donskikh. Donskikh used his connections in company management to secured state funding for distilleries and cattle farms, but then stole and laundered the money. The fraud cost the Russian government thirty million euros.
Donskikh has been charged with embezzlement in absentia and remains on a federal wanted list. From 2001 till 2009 two billion euros were stolen from Rosagroleasing and the fraudsters were sending money to a British company founded by Skrynnik and a Russian company controlled by her brother.
There are myriad accusations with photographs of dilapidated industrial farming operations, with billions of euros set aside for their modernization, but rotting away nonetheless. Farmers complain that in Putinland there are no officials who think of the country. Today there is more being stolen than by the Bolsheviks and czars together. Russokleptocrats no longer fear anyone at all. Not Stalin, Lenin, God, the devil, police, or courts of justice. Indeed, government is the #1 enemy of the people.
Whoever breaks the speed limit on Russian streets, can simply grease a palm to avoid a fine. Whether in hospitals, schools and public offices, corruption has been proliferating year on year. Bribes can get one anywhere. A new political party has also been formed. It is called People Against Corruption.
Russians cannot do away with corruption, because Russia has no independent judiciary and no rule of law. To make serious headway against corruption will only be possible when Russokleptocrats end up on trial. That hasn't happened yet.
It's become clear that corruption is now an obstacle for political governance. In the past, Russokleptocrats tried dampening voices of protest through social welfare measures. They now have to reckon with the fact that hoi polloi know Russokleptocrats steal billions of euros on a consistent basis. Myriad Russians frequently take to the streets to protest the corruption of United Russia, the party of crooks and thieves.
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