We’re continuing to dig into the issue of the sidewalk paving tiles associated with Sobyanin. Billions were allocated for them, and we now have no doubt that a significant portion of that money was stolen, while another large portion was simply squandered.
A quick recap of the story:
On May 4, 2011, the Moscow Department of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Improvement announced 19 contracts to replace asphalt sidewalk surfaces with paving tiles.
We tried to verify how well this work had been carried out—and whether it had been carried out at all.
The tile crooks did an excellent job of covering their tracks:
In half of the tenders, only one company took part (!), according to information posted by officials on the state procurement website. How many companies were simply barred from participating is unclear. In the other half of the tenders, there were only two bidders. And even there, the price reduction was negligible (for example, in a tender worth 156 million rubles, the price was lowered only to 153 million; in a tender with a starting price of 82 million rubles, it was lowered to 79 million; and so on).
The planned scope of work was not completed on virtually any site. As a result, the contractors received 40% to 60% of the contract payments. However, determining the actual volume of work completed is practically impossible.
A significant share of the contracts cannot be found at all on the federal public procurement website, http://zakupki.gov.ru, where they are required by law to be posted. Naturally, over these missing contracts we filed a complaint with the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) demanding that the responsible officials be held administratively liable: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88NIYQSdTzhTzFYdHNwQWZiUmM/edit?pli=1 (20,000 rubles for each contract not published).
In short, it’s a complete mess.
As you probably remember, to establish what was really going on, we conducted a tile inspection raid (thanks again to everyone who helped us) and found a whole lot of sites where there were either no tiles at all, or they had been laid with serious defects. I wrote about this in detail here: http://navalny.livejournal.com/704408.html
We submitted a complaint about this to the Moscow Investigative Committee (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88NIYQSdTzhMnNNZzZFLUxWQ1k/edit?pli=1); the case has now been forwarded to the Investigative Directorate for Moscow’s Central Administrative District.
What’s remarkable is that the brazen crooks at City Hall at one point decided to pull an absolutely brilliant stunt: THEY SIMPLY ANNOUNCED NEW TENDERS FOR THE VERY SAME SITES WHERE THE TILES WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE ALREADY BEEN LAID—and planned to write off another pile of money for them. And to squeeze “outside” firms out of the contracts, they used an interesting tactic—they required the work to be approved by the FSO (the Federal Protective Service). Obtaining such approval is not regulated in any way, there is no formal procedure, and everything is decided by some completely opaque process.
At that point we raised a stink, and the new auctions were canceled. That’s already something—at least we temporarily saved some budget money.
http://zakupki.gov.ru/pgz/public/action/orders/info/events_journal/show?notificationId=3425824
To make sure the contracts were not only canceled, but that the tiles already paid for were actually laid properly and the other necessary work was completed, we filed appeals with the Mayor, the Moscow City Government, and the contracting authority itself. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U8_h19HjmHo5vq7-9JnhAY4ikB6p9ZRneGaKSF9yeiA/edit)
As a result, we received the following reply a few days ago.
Wonderful reply, right? Notice what’s missing from it? Addresses. Where exactly are we supposed to check? This way they could write every day, “violations have been corrected at one billion sites.” Go find them yourself. And if anything comes up, they can always say that whatever you found isn’t part of that billion. A few days ago we sent new follow-up requests, again to City Hall and also to the prefectures of Moscow’s administrative districts, which are the main managers of the city’s budget funds, oversee the execution of contracts for Moscow’s public needs, draw up road repair plans, and in general are supposed to be monitoring this whole tile-related outrage.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88NIYQSdTzhOGpMNko5b0Nocms/edit https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B88NIYQSdTzhaVk5a0MzVWZNVEk/edit
So, all in all, it’s obvious that City Hall has no real desire to restore order or stop these outrageous crimes in the field of tile-laying. I don’t believe this whole charade is happening without Sobyanin’s knowledge; the tile fiasco is clearly a sore subject for him.
That’s understandable.
Transparency and public relations are important, sure—but making money is more important. Today people start poking into the tiles, tomorrow into lawns costing 20 million rubles, the day after tomorrow into medical equipment, and so on. And then they might end up having to live on nothing but their official salaries.