Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia brought a legislative proposal to the State Duma in April “On Entering Changes into the Federal Law “On State Defence Order” and individual legislative measures of the Russian Federation”.
According to amendments an interdepartmental system of supervision over the utilization of budgetary funds in case of placement and fulfillment of the state defence order is being established in Russia. The Ministry of Defence of Russia, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service and the Bank of Russia will come forward as the main “users”.
Human factor
By means of the interdepartmental system the regulatory bodies will keep a close watch on closing state contracts and fulfilling the state defence order, on the situation at leading factories and at contractor factories, as well as financing processes, including a progress of cross-cancellation of debts.
In particular, it is supposed to establish authorized banks and open individual bank accounts used by leading customers and contractors in the context of the above system. It will provide reliability and transparency of the cross-cancellation of debts, information protection, as well as use of the in-house technologies of the bank system for supervising the intended use of budgetary funds.
The legislative amendments will also include a number of additional measures aimed at prevention of ungrounded growth of prices in the sphere of defence order. For instance, the activity of contractors will be specified; the functions and powers of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia as a regulatory body will be clarified, an order of conducting checks, initiation of proceedings, contemplation and appealing of cases on violation of legislation will be defined.
In parallel, changes will be introduced into Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation. In more exact terms, an additional responsibility will be established for administrative offenses in the sphere of defence order. So, in case an officer violates the deadlines and the order of payment for goods, works or services, including an advance payment stipulated by a contract, an administrative fine will be charged amounting to 30 thru 50 thousand rubles. Moreover, a gross violation of the state contract will entail a disqualification for a period up to three years.
According to Victor Ozerov, Chairman of the Committee on defense and security of the Federal Assembly, the establishment of interdepartmental supervision system, shall, first of all, increase the promptness of response to various discrepancies in case of budgetary funds movement with respect to state defence order. It means that the system shall be referred to as something like “lubrication oil” for speeding up administrative processes inside a huge mechanism of the Russian MIC.
Other experts are more concise in defining the tasks of the new law. The new orders shall bring a negative influence of the human factor to a minimum.
So, e.g. according to Franz Klintsevich, the Head of the Committee on defense of the State Duma, the new law is, first of all, aimed at interdiction of corruption. Irina Yarovaya, the Head of the Committee on security and corruption interdiction of the State Duma, revoices: the document will help reveal any abusive practice at early stages. “This system can be considered as safety precautions”, she clarified.
Check after check
Let us mention that the sphere of the Russian MIC even before the new legislative initiatives has been under close follow-up of relevant authorities. So, last year the prosecution authorities alone checked about 400 enterprises in the sphere of MIC fulfilling the state defence order and 31 holding structures.
The high status of corporations has not been used as the reason for control measures cancellation. The checks have been effected at Russian Helicopters JSC, the Sukhoi Aviation Holding Company JSC, JSC “Concern PVО Almaz-Antey”, Concern Radiotechnical and Information Systems JSC, Aviation Equipment Holding, Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies JSC, United Shipbuilding Corporation JSC, United Aircraft-Building Corporation JSC, etc.
More than 12,000 breaches of law have been reveled during one year. Nearly 2,000 officials have been brought to disciplinary and administrative responsibility, 196 criminal cases have been initiated. Proceeding from the investigation results 60 cases have been sent to court, 26 persons have been sentenced.
As Yury Chaika stated, special attention has been paid in the course of checks to the compliance of the corporations and associated enterprises thereof with the Federal legislation. Alongside with remedy of defaults, the “measures have been taken to suppressing abuse practices of leading organizations with respect to powers related to dependent companies being the direct producers of armaments”.
For instance, resale of produce at higher price was restrained. Contracts on the exaction of resources by leading enterprises from associated ones on the basis of contracts on rendering services have been cancelled or revised.
In response to the demand of the General Procurator’s Office of the Russian Federation a number of joint-stock companies, which have not fulfilled the conditions of state contracts, have voluntarily returned received funds to the Ministry of Defence.
Pragmatic choice
Nevertheless, the proficient work of the competent authorities last year does not guarantee in itself the reduction of a number of crimes in the next year. The new additional tools are required.
Let us recollect the recent declaration of Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the state leader. “Fighting corruption is a consistent policy”, he stated. “It also includes efforts at the stage of lawmaking, adopting laws and activities of the special services, regulatory authorities and so on”.
It means that it is possible to fight corruption by maintaining vigilant control by creating the rules of the game, where it is quite difficult. And now seemingly the vector moves in favour of the second approach. Indeed, a “system of early detection” of corruption endeavours is being created at the legislative level.
Regina Artyukh
