Let’s all fight a little corruption together. Seriously — let’s just do it. It’s easy, if there’s the will. There’s one highly effective corruption scheme that RosPil often comes across: using Latin letters when posting government procurement notices. I’ve written about this several times already. Suppose you’re a crook buying milk for a school. Milk is a standard product, so you don’t have many chances to “bring in your own supplier” who will kick back part of the contract value to you. Milk suppliers will find your tender on the government procurement website and offer a low price. So you do something very simple. When posting the tender, instead of writing “молоко” in Russian, you write “мoлoкo,” where all three “o” letters are Latin rather than Cyrillic, and the procurement site’s search engine won’t find the listing. Only your supplier will find it, get the contract at the maximum price, and bring you 20%. That is exactly how, for example, the management of the “Kadety Baraba” orphanage is cheating its orphaned children out of money on shoe and clothing purchases.
And here’s milk in Voronezh
And here are crooks from the Plekhanov Institute hiding a tender for design and survey work:
http://zakupki.gov.ru/pgz/public/action/orders/info/common_info/show?notificationId=5315183 In the word “изыскательские,” they replaced the Russian “с” with a Latin “c.” Very simple, but it will bring someone at “Pleshka” (the informal name for the Plekhanov Institute) 2–3 million rubles in cash. And here’s another food procurement contract for schools. This one is already for 103 million rubles.
http://zakupki.gov.ru/pgz/public/action/orders/info/common_info/show?notificationId=5255759 A little magic Latin script, and there will be slightly less food for schoolchildren in the Solnechnogorsk district, while someone in the district administration becomes considerably richer. RosPil knows how to “catch” these Latin-letter tricks. We use special script programs written for us by volunteers (once again, many thanks and appreciation to them). Even so, our ability to challenge every such tender is limited, and their number is growing. How long has this “corruption loophole” existed, and do the people at the top know about it? Let’s go back to the distant month of July 2009, when “[RosPil” didn’t even exist yet:
http://youtu.be/O10oMXrNxSw "I. SHUVALOV: As a preliminary matter, Dmitry Anatolyevich, I can report that this information has been confirmed. We will report the more precise results of the inspection to you in the near future. D. MEDVEDEV: Confirmed in the sense that this was done deliberately? I. SHUVALOV: That it was done deliberately. D. MEDVEDEV: Then everyone involved must be punished. I. SHUVALOV: We will certainly report the final results of the inspection to you. D. MEDVEDEV: Agreed." http://blog.da-medvedev.ru/post/24/transcript As you can see, Medvedev and Shuvalov are discussing this problem (after a series of media reports) and saying that they will eliminate it and punish those responsible. This was in 2009. Four years have passed. They neither eliminated it nor punished anyone. Does the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) know about this problem? "Violations involving the use of Latin letters, the digit “0,” and other symbols in Russian-language words in the title of a procurement order are considered a gross violation of procurement law and in some cases may lead to criminal liability for the customer’s officials," said Mikhail Evraev, head of the FAS Russia department for oversight of government procurement placement, after an inspection of the correctness of procurement information posted on the official website www.zakupki.gov.ru, conducted by the antimonopoly service back in 2009. And what do the courts think about it? The courts are perfectly reasonable too: a body of case law has developed, with courts siding with the antimonopoly service when contracting authorities tried to challenge FAS decisions. Could there be some secret lobbying group preventing the “Latin letters in public procurement” problem from being solved? No. You don’t see Timchenko, Rotenberg, or Kovalchuk here. Big crooks don’t need Latin letters. This is a way for the very bottom of the bureaucratic food chain to make money. To sum up: The problem is serious. The mass use of Latin letters in public procurement makes it possible to steal millions and billions. The authorities have acknowledged the problem, and they even seem to be showing the political will to solve it. There are no major “special interest groups” capable of blocking a crackdown on this Latin-letter trick. So why is nothing happening? My answer is simple: nobody cares. It’s a consequence of the state’s overall inefficiency. Officials show initiative only on issues that let them make money or expand the limits of their authority (in other words, gain more power). That is why no systemic changes that benefit everyone, but do not benefit specific officials, ever get implemented. Nobody has time for that. Fine then. We have the time and the desire. (solemn music plays; RosPil staff emerge from the shadows, capes billowing over their shoulders, anti-corruption logos blazing on their chests, fountain pens and donation boxes gleaming in their hands) And you have the ability to help us push this initiative forward and raise its public profile. Defeating the corrupt use of Latin letters in public procurement is not just possible — it’s very easy. Disclaimer: by “Latin letters” here we mean not only that specific trick, but more broadly problems with how tenders are worded, including deliberate spelling mistakes and vague descriptions of the contract subject matter (for example, “supply of goods,” “repair of a malfunction at a non-financial asset site,” etc.). For example, like this:
So. A systemic solution to the problem — and this is the main thing. Tougher penalties for violations. Public punishment for those responsible. Based on practice, experience, and long reflection, the specialists at RosPil propose the following measures: technical improvement of the official procurement website’s electronic search system: when searching for tenders by keywords, the system should treat visually similar letters from the Russian and Latin alphabets as identical (for example, у and y, У and Y, к and k, К and K, е and e, Е and E, Н and H, х and x, Х and X, В and B, а and a, А and A, р and p, Р and P, о and o, О and O, с and c, С and C, м and m, М and M, Т and T). That way, the use of “Latin letters” will no longer interfere with full-text searches by tender title on the official website. In other words, this crooked scheme will simply stop making sense. Given that, as we remember, more than 1 billion rubles in total was spent on the public procurement website, such an upgrade can be implemented without any additional cost. THIS IS VERY EASY TO DO. tougher liability for such violations. Right now, you could write the tender entirely in English if you wanted, and the worst that can happen is a 15,000-ruble fine. That’s despite the fact that million-ruble kickbacks are at stake. Given that, besides using Latin letters, there are other ways to “hide” a tender, we propose increasing the fine by more than three times (from 15,000 to 50,000 rubles) for violations of the requirements for publishing information on the official website, and introducing disqualification for up to one year for repeat offenses. It is also necessary to increase the fine and introduce disqualification for violations of the requirements governing approval of procurement documentation. RosPil’s lawyers have prepared the relevant draft law: “On Amendments and Additions to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation with Regard to Strengthening the Liability of Officials for Violations of the Procedure for Placing Orders for the Supply of Goods, Performance of Work, and Provision of Services for Customers’ Needs.” holding people accountable for violations committed earlier. We believe that everyone who committed such violations in 2012 should be held accountable. What’s more, since we understand that everyone in the government and presidential administration is, like, terribly busy, RosPil has even prepared all the draft orders for them. Just sign them, and the Latin-letter problem will disappear within a month. Here is the appeal to Medvedev, with a short and simple draft Government Order attached: “On the Implementation of Measures to Prevent Corruption and Other Abuses in the Sphere of Public Procurement.” Here is the appeal to Putin, with a list of what he needs to do within his authority. Here is the appeal to Abyzov’s “Open Government” (a Russian government initiative meant to engage with the public), which supposedly exists to interact with civil society and help implement sound initiatives. Additionally: Appeal to the FAS. Appeal to the Prosecutor General’s Office. There. We’ve done everything. We’ve written everything: orders, appeals, draft legislation. No additional budget spending is required. The political will supposedly exists and is even demonstrated on television. Our proposal is entirely positive and constructive. This post contains none of the usual insults or attacks on officials’ honor and dignity. The phrase “crooks and thieves” is not mentioned even once. No offensive pictures, no threats. So what else is needed to carry out a small “systemic reform” and win a tiny but important victory in the fight against corruption? Let’s see what comes of it. All we need from you is a little help publicizing this initiative, so that officials can’t pretend they didn’t notice it. Share the link if you don’t mind. Write about it if you’re a journalist. In a month, we’ll report back on how the system works when confronted with “constructive proposals.” PS We’ve connected a service called Robokassa to RosPil’s donation system, so now you don’t even need PayPal to send us money from a bank card. You just enter the card number as you would in a regular online store. Thanks to everyone who helps.