Here's the thing.
Vladimir Mau, rector of the Academy of National Economy, no longer considers me a Robin Hood figure. Quite the opposite: he has demoted me from Robin Hood to empty talker. "N. KALUGINA: Hello. And since this is ‘Credit of Trust’—trust in the economy, trust in the state, and trust in our guests—I’d very much like to begin the program with a rather uncomfortable question for you from our website. Fame Conway, an engineer from Russia, writes: ‘Excuse me, but I’m interested in why your photograph appears next to the words: “Who is siphoning off 9 million rubles by setting a two-day deadline for the project?” And all this is on the RosPil website.’ V. MAU: Yes, thank you for that question. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m very grateful, because the problem is gone, yet the aftertaste remains. As I understand it, this “ROsPil,” or “RosPIl,” I suppose in Russian… N. KALUGINA: I honestly don’t know. V. MAU: …I read it too. It was organized by Mr. Navalny, whom I had honestly previously regarded as a kind of Robin Hood, someone genuinely fighting for justice. But the information was truly astonishing. If the rest of Mr. Navalny’s information is of the same quality, then, to put it mildly, none of it should be believed. It wasn’t a matter of confusion; the website really did say… the Academy of National Economy had announced a tender, the application deadline was December 10, and the date for summing up the results was December 13. This was on the federal public procurement website. For some reason, from this two-day gap for evaluating the bids, it was concluded that there were two days to carry out the contract. In other words, the implication was clear: some little firm would come in, get the money, and two days later submit some kind of report saying that… and get paid. I later looked at the comments, and some readers of the site asked Mr. Navalny in surprise: Please understand, those two days were for evaluating the bids, not for carrying out the order. But somehow it all passed, and the aftertaste remained. So, well, what can you do? Those are our fighters for justice." ////////// *It’s not good when the aftertaste remains. It’s very hard to train personnel for the national economy with an aftertaste like that. So, a little background. On the RosPil website (it’s still in test mode, so I won’t say much about it for now. I’ll talk about it separately later), one of the Academy of National Economy’s tenders really was posted as suspicious: The State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education “Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation”** **is commissioning research work on the topic “Analysis of Regional Aspects of Increasing the Competitiveness of the Economy” for the State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education “Academy of National Economy under the Government of the Russian Federation.” Contract price: 9.2 million rubles. Here
2. Nine million is not a small amount of money, but presumably the work is complex too. Now let’s look at the timeline. For that, we go to section 1.2 of the Instructions for Tender Participants, Section II, Information Card, in the tender documentation under “Documents”:”
Next, let’s look at Federal Law No. 94: Chapter 2, Article 29, Clause 1.1: A state or municipal contract may be concluded no earlier than ten days after the protocol evaluating and comparing bids submitted for the tender is posted on the official website. That means if the commission meets on December 13, the state contract cannot possibly be signed before December 23. And as we can see above, the work was to be completed by December 25. Perhaps the Academy of National Economy has some difficulty with this, but I was able to subtract 23 from 25 and determine that for all the work on “Analysis of Regional Aspects of Increasing the Competitiveness of the Economy,” exactly two days remained. The contract value was 9 million rubles, or about $300,000. So the assumption was that the winner of the tender would be spending the money efficiently and with proper justification at a rate of $150,000 per day. I’m very curious what expert or research organization in the country could do that. Anyone who doubts my calculations can go to the public procurement website and check for themselves who is right: Vladimir Mau or rospil.info I should note that on December 13, the tender was declared invalid because no one submitted a bid.
One can only guess why that happened. Perhaps there was no preselected winner, and no one applied because the conditions were obviously impossible to meet. (Then why were those conditions set in the first place?) Or perhaps the preselected winner decided not to take the risk and stay in the shadows after the tender appeared on RosPil in mid-November. What I want to say in this connection: I suggest that Vladimir Mau keep a closer eye on how procurement is organized at the institution under his supervision; stop misleading the listeners of Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station) and other citizens; continue to think of me as Robin Hood. If Vladimir Mau behaves himself better from now on, I am prepared to take him on as either Friar Tuck or Little John. His choice. I’m sure that in tight green tights, bow in hand, he would look quite impressive in the deep forests of Troparevo-Nikulino (a district in Moscow). Update. Folk creativity from the comments sbelow the cut