Federal Law No. 94-FZ on public procurement will not be repealed, Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) chief Igor Artemyev confirmed today, citing the results of Wednesday’s discussion of the law’s reform with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. “We will reform other parts of the [public procurement] system. But Law 94 will remain in force,” Artemyev said, according to RIA Novosti. What does need further work, he said, is the system of long-term public procurement planning, quality control for purchased goods, and the qualification requirements for suppliers when commissioning research work.* Read more Apparently our efforts also made a small contribution. Thank you to everyone who supported the campaign for a public discussion of public procurement reform. It’s too early to start jumping for joy. That’s why I called this “conditionally good” news: for now, we’ve managed to beat back the head-on cavalry charge of the believers in the “presumption of an official’s good faith.” Obviously, the next attempt will be craftier and more inventive. A striking statement points in that direction: It has been decided to wind down the public discussion around the draft law on the Federal Contract System (FCS): at the meeting, the positions of the Ministry of Economic Development, the Finance Ministry, and the FAS on the FCS became clear, and it turned out that there are no fundamental disagreements between them. What the media, the drafters, experts, market participants, and simply the broader public liked so much—regardless of which side they supported—namely, open public discussion, is exactly what the government leadership categorically dislikes. I see two reasons for this: They fundamentally do not want to discuss anything connected with corruption, because sooner or later the discussion moves toward the logical conclusion: all right, then let’s look specifically at exactly how much you stole yesterday, the day before, and last week. For them, any discussion undermines the legitimacy of their decisions. The more they speak off the cuff, the more often the question arises: who are all these people, anyway? what right do they have to sit on the presidium with important officials? The whole mysterious aura of “powerful, highly informed professionals” vanishes instantly. What remains are dubious characters whose wives have suspiciously high incomes. A situation arises similar to United Russia’s “victories” — patriotically minded citizens begin to understand that dragging these, uh... gentlemen out of the presidium by the scruff of the neck does not look any more unlawful than their being in that presidium in the first place. Direct democracy, so to speak. ... All right, I started on a positive note and ended up somewhere around calls for violent overthrow. Once again, congratulations to everyone on the good news. Thank you to everyone who helped.
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