The story of Gazprom’s pipes, which the “effective managers” buried in the ground without waiting for pipeline approval and thereby doomed to become an eternal underground monument to mismanagement and corruption (at a cost of 18 billion rubles), is astounding.
But it looks even more astounding when you compare it to the 2016 federal budget, which I recently wrote about. After all, multibillion-ruble losses, damages, and theft at Gazprom are, on the one hand, something we’ve grown used to hearing about constantly; on the other, they remain hard for many people to grasp—who the hell knows whether that’s a lot or a little on Gazprom’s scale.
Let’s look at it on a national scale:
The fools at the state-owned company Gazprom buried 18 billion rubles in a non-existent gas pipeline.
That is 22% of the federal budget for housing and utilities. There are no exact figures, but I would guess that with that amount, the whole country could have gone a year without paying the idiotic mandatory fee for major apartment-building repairs.
That is 19% of annual funding for culture and cinematography.
That is 30% of annual environmental spending.
Or take sports. Everyone loves sports. A championship is coming up here soon, athletes are being honored and having their hands shaken. The annual Russian sports budget could have been increased by 25% with the amount Gazprom lost for good.
Healthcare spending could have been increased by 3.69%, and there would certainly have been enough money for everyone trying to raise funds online for surgery for their child.
Pretty wild, isn’t it? Once you start doing the math, you realize: this really is a rich country, there is money. A lot of money. It’s just not being spent in the interests of ordinary citizens at all.
How could I not quote myself here (sorry)—it fits the situation with these Gazprom billions just too well.
The quote isn’t exactly fit for polite company, so I won’t post it here—see for yourself.