What a wonderful program *Man and the Law* (a Russian TV current affairs show) is. They really crack down on crooks profiting from government contracts. In the latest episode, they explain how they uncovered the purchase of iPads for the Moscow Oblast Duma and luxurious furniture for the Mining University in St. Petersburg.
http://youtu.be/Rjx0IsMLj5g It vividly describes how justice prevailed. The iPads will not be purchased: "there's no reason to blow two million people's rubles on toys" (about RUB 2 million), "the elected officials obediently agreed to simpler tablets, so all right, we forgive them". As for the furniture for the Mining University, Man and the Law even conducted its own "mini-investigation." That also ended well. "We hope students will now get good but inexpensive furniture". So congratulations are in order for Channel One's journalists on their success. Both cases were obviously taken from the RosPil website or from newspaper coverage on the subject: both investigations were initiated by RosPil more than a month ago, and in both cases we won. Furniture. iPads. No mention of RosPil could be found in ChiZ's wonderful "mini-investigation". We do not really mind, except that the program makes it look as though the system works in such a way that these kinds of procurements get stopped. And that is where Man and the Law is lying. A tiny fraction of corrupt procurements (relative to the overall volume) is stopped by RosPil and similarly troublesome civic activists in spite of a system designed to make stealing easier. Otherwise, procurements like these would never be able to appear in the first place, and if they did appear, then those who initiated them would be punished once they were canceled. And RosPil would not be needed. And people would not have to chip in to fund it. By the way, about the money. Here's the report. 1,650,313 — Yandex.Money 1,067,299 — bank account 2,824,050 — PayPal So, since 14:02 on December 19, we have raised RUB 5,541,662. The magic little bag is half full. Thank you all very much. We would already have raised much more, but unfortunately PayPal—which, as you can see, accounts for the largest share of incoming donations—blocked our account on the night of December 21 because of the large number of transactions. They will restore access; it is a formal procedure, but it takes time. We hope everything will be working again on Monday or Tuesday. For now, Yandex.Money 41001859832724 and bank transfer are still working. All the available ways to donate to RosPil are conveniently listed here Update. PayPal is working again. So users (including holders of regular bank cards) can once again send us money through it. If that's you, go here: PayPal or payment by a regular bank card.