A serious scandal has erupted in Estonia: citizens reviewed the former president’s credit card statement and discovered that he had been spending money on expenses that could hardly be called official state business.
He went to spas, stayed in expensive hotels, and bought sunglasses.
That is, an itemized credit card spending statement is literally made public for everyone to see and scrutinize. Citizens examine it and complain. A scandal and a political crisis follow.
In Russia, there is no scandal.
The state-owned company Rosneftegaz, which holds stakes in the largest state corporations—Gazprom and Rosneft—does not publish any financial reporting at all. The government gave it special permission to do so.
In other words, there was an explicit special directive from the Russian government, issued so that Russian citizens would not be able to find out what is inside it and how the profits from state ownership of resource-extraction companies are being spent.
So what do we have as a result?
The Russian media laugh at the silly Estonians and their problems. Putin and Medvedev will probably retell it to each other as a joke too.
And in addition to this amusing little detail—the difference in how Russia and Estonia understand government transparency—we have the following:
GDP per capita
In Estonia, $17,638; in Russia, $11,038
The average salary in Estonia is 1,163 euros (75,281 rubles), while in Russia it is 32,122 rubles.
The pension in Estonia is 391 euros (25,309 rubles); in Russia, it is 13,000 rubles.
I am going to vote so that government transparency in Russia will be no less than in Estonia, and salaries will be higher.
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