I’ve been following with great interest the developments around the vote for the “Heart of Russia” mosque, which, astonishingly, ended up becoming the reason for the semi-compulsory transfer of mobile subscribers in the Chechen Republic to the operator Vainakh Telecom. Roughly speaking, the timeline looks like this. Yet another idiotic “Symbol of Russia” contest is announced. People vote by paid SMS — just another way for some crooks to make a bit of money. Since this time the crooks are working with the Russian Geographical Society, which is patronized by Putin, all the regional petty tyrants started bending over backwards (just as the oligarchs already are) to win this competition. And of course our “richest” governor is Kadyrov, the leader of heavily subsidized Chechnya. He casually throws 55 million rubles (about $1.7 million at the time) of taxpayers’ stolen money at these SMS messages, sending several million of them. The Chechen mosque starts taking the lead in the voting. But there are others who also want glory, and vote-rigging isn’t exactly a complicated technology. So another United Russia governor — Andrei Vorobyov from Moscow Region throws in even more stolen taxpayer money so that the Kolomna Kremlin wins the vote. Vorobyov thinks it’s a good idea — he has an election coming up. Kadyrov realizes he’s been played, and that he’s not the only one who knows how to waste other people’s money. He gets very offended. Oddly enough, though, not at his fellow party member Vorobyov, but at the mobile operators. In Chechnya, people begin attacking Beeline and MegaFon offices.
http://youtu.be/lc_GKHmO7dQ Obvious hooliganism, right? So where are the wonderful police vans and buses full of OMON riot police, the kind we’re so used to seeing in Moscow? 7. In Grozny, they cut the mobile operators’ communication cables. 8. Beeline and MegaFon announced the closure of their offices in Chechnya 9. Kadyrov declared that all of Chechnya is switching to a new operator: Vainakh Telecom. That seems to be the end of the story, which pretty transparently hints that in Chechnya even the minimal set of laws that still functions in the rest of Russia is observed very poorly. But at the Anti-Corruption Foundation, we decided to dig a little deeper and quickly uncovered some remarkable facts. You probably immediately thought the same thing we did: I wonder who actually owns this Vainakh Telecom? Here’s the answer: On November 22, 2003, Ramzan Said-Emievich Cherkhigov and Adam Yaragiyevich Basayev founded Vainakh Telecom CJSC.
On November 10, 2005, the same two men founded the construction company YugStroyInvest CJSC. So who is Ramzan Said-Emievich Cherkhigov? Here he is.
He serves as the (SURPRISE) Minister of Transport and Communications of the Chechen Republic.
A conflict of interest and corruption? Well of course not. It’s perfectly normal and fine when the mobile company to which all subscribers are being forcibly transferred belongs to the communications minister.
http://mtischr.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=457:-62-&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=120 Cherkhigov’s employment history is noteworthy.
First, it omits seven years — from 1996 to 2003 — just like all publicly available biographies of Cherkhigov. Second, he founded Vainakh Telecom CJSC just one month before being appointed deputy head of the Gudermes District administration. So tell me, please: where in the biography of businessman and state official Cherkhigov is there anything that could explain how, and with what money, he was able to create a mobile communications company? Naturally, after being appointed Chechnya’s Minister of Transport and Communications in 2007, Cherkhigov’s business really took off. In 2009, his company YugStroyInvest CJSC, together with the state unitary enterprise Chechavtotrans, which was subordinate to his ministry (don’t miss the absolutely delightful latest news item on their website), founded Chechen Transport Company LLC.
But in 2012, 100% of this company came to be owned by Zaurbek Said-Emievich Cherkhigov.
Naturally, Ramzan Cherkhigov never misses a chance to take part in government tenders. Unfortunately, reasonably complete data is only available from 2011 onward. In 2011, Vainakh Telecom won 31 tenders worth 87 million rubles (about $2.8 million at the time), including 5 tenders worth 57 million rubles from Chechnya’s Ministry of Transport and Communications. In 2012, Vainakh Telecom won tenders worth 156.5 million rubles (about $5 million at the time), including 5 tenders worth 70 million rubles from Chechnya’s Ministry of Transport and Communications. In 2013, Vainakh Telecom had already managed to win 40 tenders worth 31.5 million rubles (about $1 million at the time). Altogether over the last three years, Vainakh Telecom took part in 124*** tenders, winning 107 of them, for a*** total of 275 million rubles. And from the Chechen Ministry of Transport and Communications, it won every tender it entered. Funny, isn’t it? The transport minister winning tenders from the transport ministry. Cherkhigov’s second company, YugStroyInvest CJSC, is also fond of government contracts. In 2012 it won 14 tenders (mostly for building schools and kindergartens) worth 700 million rubles. Chechen Transport Company LLC — which Cherkhigov’s firm created together with a state enterprise subordinate to Cherkhigov’s ministry, and which was later transferred to his relative — won tenders from Chechnya’s Ministry of Labor worth 108.5 million rubles (2011, 2012, 2013). Presumably, Chechen Transport Company is a very efficient company, since it managed to win every tender it entered.
At this point, you’re probably wondering how much Ramzan Said-Emievich officially earns. Easy enough to check — he’s a government official. Let’s look at the website of Chechnya’s Ministry of Transport and Communications. We look and... find nothing! Why am I writing all this, and what does Sobyanin have to do with it? So that you all understand very clearly: All these Cherkhigovs and Kadyrovs became multimillionaires in U.S. dollar terms in an impoverished republic using YOUR money. It’s obvious there’s no real business here. Just budget money that you sent them. United Russia doesn’t come to us in separate pieces. You can’t hate Kadyrov and still vote for Sobyanin.
http://echo.msk.ru/blog/echomsk/1095650-echo/ If you vote for Sobyanin, you are voting for Muscovites’ money and the money of other Russian residents to be neatly packaged into transfers and handed out through sham tenders to Ramzans Said-Emieviches and the Ramzan Akhmadoviches who protect them. People who smile sweetly and say: many thanks to the Muscovites who stay home and thereby support this system of power. Now is the time when everyone can vote against the fact that their money is, for some reason, called “Allah’s money” and stuffed into the pockets of Sobyanin’s fellow party members from Chechnya. Don’t stay home. Take a newspaper and hand it out to as many citizens as possible. Persuade as many people as you can to vote against Sobyanin and his United Russia gang. An election is a great chance to show them h***ow much ***we dislike this.