On March 22, Medvedev’s “Open Government” held a working group meeting on “combating corruption”. Present at the session were Konstantin Kalmykov, coordinator of RosPil, and the project’s lawyer, Konstantin Terekhov. They spoke in the “fighting corruption in public procurement” section and presented our very specific proposals in this area. Most of these proposals had already previously been submitted to the government in the form of concrete amendments. Here is a video of both Konstantins’ remarks, along with part of Medvedev’s closing comments concerning our proposals.
http://youtu.be/kV-znZ1E8ws Briefly, once again: — grant public associations the right to go to court to defend the rights and lawful interests of an indefinite group of persons (participants in procurement procedures), as well as to file complaints with the body authorized to review such complaints in defense of the rights and lawful interests of an indefinite group of persons (participants in procurement procedures) regarding unlawful actions or inaction by the customer, procurement commissions and their members, and officials of the customer’s contract service, including violations in the justification of a procurement, in particular the selection and justification of the procurement object, the procurement method, and the initial (maximum) contract price; — tighten liability for the customer (up to and including disqualification and dismissal of officials) in cases where the customer fails to make the required procurement information publicly available, including contract details. — if the initial (maximum) contract price for the procurement of goods, works, or services exceeds a threshold established by law, the state (municipal) contract must require the winning bidder, when entering into the contract, to provide the customer with information about its ultimate owners (beneficial owners), including their surnames, first names, and patronymics. If the winner is a joint-stock company, it must provide the customer with information about its ultimate owners (beneficial owners) who directly or indirectly (through other persons) hold more than 10% of the voting shares in that joint-stock company. At the same time, the state (municipal) contract must mandatorily provide for liability for refusal to disclose such information. — if the initial (maximum) contract price for the procurement of goods, works, or services exceeds a threshold established by law, the state (municipal) contract must require the contractor under the state (municipal) contract to provide information on all subcontractors that have entered into an agreement with the contractor for the performance of work or provision of services that are the subject of the procurement. — introduce the institution of independent public monitors, vested with the authority to: suspend and cancel state and municipal procurements; monitor inspections and investigative actions in cases involving violations of the law; and determine the direction of inspections and investigations. You can find more details here, if you’re interested. Medvedev appeared, at least verbally, to support all of the proposals except for the introduction of independent monitors. He did not comment on that proposal at all. Overall, I would describe the results of the meeting as deeply discouraging. Anti-corruption fighter Medvedev rejected almost all concrete proposals, replacing them with the usual blah-blah. This entire council should have been convened to discuss one key proposal: the creation of an independent anti-corruption body. They discussed it, and Medvedev rejected the idea, saying that if such a body were to be created, it should be within the Prosecutor General’s Office (Russia’s top prosecutorial authority). Right, let’s add yet another deputy to Prosecutor General Chaika, this time for fighting corruption. He’ll surely start fighting corruption right away. Especially when it comes to Chaika’s son and his gambling business. The Prosecutor General’s Office never fought corruption before, of course, but with a new deputy—wow, then it really will. We are not going to see any real fight against corruption. Here, by the way, is an excellent Vedomosti editorial on the outcome of the meeting. And a perfect illustration of Medvedev’s “fight against corruption” is today’s termination of the criminal case against former metro chief Gaev. They shouted so loudly and so convincingly about multi-billion-ruble embezzlement, and then so quickly concluded that it was not embezzlement at all. Quite astonishing, really. Well, all right—nothing has changed overall, but we weren’t expecting it to. Still, if RosPil’s amendments are adopted, the work will become easier and exposing crooks will be simpler. Congratulations to RosPil’s Kostya and Kostya (and RosPil as a whole) on their strong performances at such a high level.