A criminal case on abuse of authority has been initiated against the former head of the state holding Avtodor, Sergei Kelbakh.

Now Kelbach holds the position of adviser on public-private partnership of the general director of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov. Avtodor is headed by Vyacheslav Petushenko, who replaced Kelbach in February 2019.

The case was initiated on the facts of improper spending of advance payments during the construction of the Central Ring Road (CKAD).

Later, the Investigation Committee told about the details of the violations imputed to Kelbach and assessed the damage from his actions.

“The illegal actions of Kelbakh entailed grave consequences and substantial violations of the interests of the state protected by law, causing damage in the amount of more than 2 billion rubles,” said the UK.

According to the ministry, being the head of Avtodor Kelbakh in 2015 agreed to illegal payment of OOO Kolyevaya Magistral a commission for a bank guarantee in the amount of RUB 3.9 million at Gazprombank and the improper provision of an additional advance payment in 2017 to Crocus International. in the amount of 2 billion rubles.

According to the investigators, Kelbach unreasonably used budget funds, as well as funds from the National Wealth Fund, intended for the construction of the Central Ring Road in 2014-2018. It is noted that the former head of Avtodor abused his authority in the process of implementing investment agreements.

In addition to this, Kelbakh accepted and paid for work on the planning of the construction site of one of the sections of the Central Ring Road for 132.6 billion rubles, which was not provided for by the federal targeted program.

In turn, representatives of Avtodor stated that they had timely provided all the necessary materials about violations during the construction of the Central Ring Road to authorized bodies.

  • Construction of the Central Ring Road
  • RIA News
  • © Alexey Kudenko

Construction of the Central Ring Road

The Central Ring Road is a high-speed highway on the territory of the Moscow region with a length of 530 kilometers, the main task of which is to unload the air routes of Moscow and the Moscow ring road. The Central Ring Road should become a bypass route that transit transport can take. The highway is divided into five start-up complexes, which were planned to be completed by different dates.

Development of project documentation lasted from 2008 to 2011. Construction of the highway began in 2014. It was expected that the construction would be fully completed by 2018-2019, however, later the dates were repeatedly postponed.

In 2011, the cost of the Central Ring Road was estimated at 232 billion rubles, but later this figure rose to 350 billion.

In October 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee and the Court of Auditors to verify the validity of the increase in the cost of building the Central Ring Road.

Later that month, the Prosecutor General’s Office began to verify compliance with the laws when concluding contracts for the construction of the Central Ring Road.

In February 2019, the Audit Chamber reported that the construction of the Central Ring Road would not be completed on time due to systemic problems and insufficiently effective management.

"As of December 1, 2018, the construction readiness of the Central Ring Road was from 0% to 66%, which does not allow to complete work on the launch complexes N1, N3 and N5 before the fourth quarter of 2020, and on the launch complex N4 - before the second quarter of 2021", - noted in the Accounts Chamber.

The Accounting Chamber indicated that in January 2018, schedules for eliminating the backlog of work in areas N1 and N5 were adopted, but they were not met.

The Office concluded that the main reasons for the delay were due to the poor quality of the design and the duration of the land acquisition procedures.

In addition, the number of workers and equipment at all start-up complexes does not correspond to the construction project, the department said. A number of irregularities were also found, including overestimation of the cost of work and inefficient use of resources created at the expense of the budget of the Russian Federation.

It should be noted that in early July, the government published a decree that postpones the completion date of the Central Ring Road from 2020 to 2021.