Oh, what a spectacular piece of news has come out of Chelyabinsk. Remember how RosPil fought against the “upgrade of the Magellan software system,” which regional officials had commissioned for 25 million rubles? Those who follow RosPil should remember it. It was one of our first major cases, two years ago:
http://navalny.livejournal.com/546610.html Back then, we had a long-running public fight with the Chelyabinsk regional government. We got a response from the regional industry minister, Valery Prudsky, basically saying that we didn’t understand anything and that if someone could build such a system for one ruble, they were welcome to come and do it.
There he is, old man Prudsky. He’ll read this post, so I send him my warm regards. The usual Nashi activists (pro-Kremlin youth movement) and local United Russia members were also bustling around, squealing that RosPil were amateurs who understood nothing about information systems, and that Chelyabinsk officials would become oh-so-efficient once they were bought a 25-million-ruble system. We managed to get the contract canceled at first, but then the persistent Chelyabinsk government pushed it through anyway by some unclear means. And now, today, this is what is being reported from Chelyabinsk: For***mer officials of the Chelyabinsk Region Ministry of Industry charged with fraud involving a state contract for upgrades to Magellan software Former officials of the Chelyabinsk Region Ministry of Industry have been charged with fraud involving 25 million rubles, allegedly stolen during the tender for upgrades to the Magellan software. According to Nakanune.RU, citing the regional Interior Ministry’s information department, charges have been brought against 34-year-old former head of the ministry’s property relations department, Yevgeny Kaliberda, and 39-year-old former director of the state unitary enterprise “Regional Treasury,” Igor Kozhevnikov. Investigators say the scheme was carried out during the tender for upgrades to document-management software (the Magellan program) for the Ministry of Industry. At the time, former minister Valery Prudskoy spoke in the media, arguing that the announced price was reasonable and that the software was necessary for the executive authority, while Yevgeny Kaliberda was highly active on online forums. The criminal investigation found that the tender winner, LLC “Tenders and Offsets,” belonged to Kozhevnikov’s wife, while a program similar to the one supplied to the ministry for millions of rubles had been purchased shortly beforehand from a Moscow firm for 10,000 rubles. **According to investigators, Kaliberda deliberately cleared the position of director of the state enterprise “Regional Treasury” for Kozhevnikov by having the previous director dismissed. According to the case materials, the former officials misled the minister and did so without obtaining the required approval for a major transaction. After the budget funds were transferred, the money was cashed out by members of the group using the details of shell companies and organizations controlled by the officials. At present, the defendants, who are under travel restrictions, are reviewing the case materials. They deny guilt, refuse to testify, and their property has been seized at the request of investigators. *http://www.nakanune.ru/news/2013/3/6/22302196/ So, in other words, those tough Chelyabinsk officials literally bought a program for 10,000 rubles and then sold it to their home region for 25 million rubles through a front company set up by the wife of one of those officials. 25 million rubles - (10,000 rubles + the overhead costs of registering a company) = very, very profitable. It’s just wonderful. Except that all of this could have been prevented two years ago, but the permanent hero of this blog, Governor Yurevich, did not want to do that. And most likely, he got a cut of 10 million out of those 25 million. The Chelyabinsk case, by the way, perfectly illustrates what goes on in government IT procurement. Oil, gas, drugs, and prostitution don’t generate profits like this. I am 100% sure that the prosecutor’s personnel records system for 1.8 billion rubles, and the “Electronic University” for Far Eastern University for 647 million rubles, and everything else of that kind are exactly the same kind of graft as the Magellan system—just on a far grander scale. Unfortunately, confirmation of that will come only years from now, when our money has long since turned into villas in Nice and Miami, and the children of various Prudskys and Yureviches will be the ones living in them.