The Accounts Chamber estimated the theft from the federal budget of Russia in the range of 2-3 billion rubles a year. This was the head of the chamber Alexei Kudrin said on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the department.

“In criminal cases, it’s from a force of up to 2-3 billion rubles a year, as a rule, even less,” he confirmed.

At the same time, Kudrin added that the total amount of financial irregularities for 2019 amounted to 804 billion rubles. The head of the department explained that about a third of them affect accounting - this is corrected during inspections. Another third are violations of procurement procedures that are not criminal offenses.

Kudrin also said that the Accounts Chamber intends to gradually move on to identifying systemic problems in the financial sector.

“This does not mean that we will move away from the search and analysis of financial irregularities. I hope we will even expand this direction through the use of digital analysis methods. We will set for ourselves such a KPI - to influence the situation in the country more through the resolution of systemic problems. And by the middle of this year we’ll build a new model for managing the Accounts Chamber, ”Kudrin said.

He also stressed that in the schedule of inspections of the department in 2020, Gazprom, Rosneftegaz and Rostech will be added to the traditional Rosavtodor, Rosatom, Roskosmos, Russian Railways, VEB.

In turn, Vladimir Putin asked Kudrin to also monitor the implementation of national projects.

“I very much hope that, as we agreed, the Accounts Chamber will even look a little more broadly at the problems that you are dealing with, and in this particular situation it will also be involved in monitoring the implementation of national projects. I know that in this connection there are often disputes with the government and with some respected experts, but, in my opinion, this is an absolutely natural process, without which it is impossible to seek and find the necessary solutions, ”the president said.

The fight against corruption is a priority

In 2018, Alexey Kudrin, at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, said that the fight against corruption remains the priorities of the Accounts Chamber. He also stated the need for additional openness in the work of ministries and departments.

As the Prosecutor General’s Office reported in the summer of 2018, more than 1.7 thousand officials were dismissed in Russia for a year and a half in Russia due to the loss of confidence in corruption offenses. The agency called the institution of dismissal of officials in connection with the loss of confidence for such offenses an effective means of combating corruption.

The Prosecutor General’s Office also recalled that from January 1, 2018, the federal law “On Combating Corruption” provides for the maintenance of a public register of persons dismissed for this reason. The law does not prohibit the employment of persons included in this register, this remains at the discretion of the employer.

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One of the most resonant over the past few years has been the case of ex-Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev, sentenced to eight years in prison and 130 million rubles fine in the case of extortion of a bribe. The court found Ulyukaev guilty of having money from Rosneft’s representatives in exchange for a positive conclusion on the Bashneft privatization deal. The former minister is serving his sentence in a strict regime colony in Tver.

In 2018, the former governor of the Sakhalin Region, Alexander Khoroshavin, was convicted in the case of corruption crimes. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison with a sentence in a maximum security colony, as well as to a fine of 500 million rubles. Khoroshavin and his accomplices were charged with eight cases of bribery and one episode of money laundering as part of a criminal group. Recall, the ex-governor and several members of his team were detained on March 4, 2015 at the workplace on charges of corruption and sent to Moscow for further investigative actions. During a search of the governor's place of residence, 1 billion rubles in cash and a lot of jewelry were discovered and seized.

A week before the verdict was announced to Khoroshavin, the Presnensky court of Moscow found guilty of ex-governor of the Kirov region Nikita Belykh guilty of a particularly large bribe and sentenced him to eight years in a maximum security colony and a fine of 48 million rubles. In the summer of 2016, Nikita Belykh was detained by officers of the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service in the restaurant of the Lotte Plaza shopping and office center on Novy Arbat at the time of transferring labeled money totaling over € 100 thousand to the governor. According to the investigation, the governor was supposed to pay the money for taking actions in favor of the bribe giver and the Novovyatsky ski factory JSC controlled by it and LLC Forestry Management Company, as well as for general patronage and connivance in the service when the government of the Kirov region exercises control over the implementation of taking investment projects and conducting business in the Kirov region. ”

The case of the former head of the Komi Republic, Vyacheslav Gaiser, who in 2019 the Zamoskvoretsky court found guilty of corruption and the creation of an organized criminal community, was also widely known. Gaiser was sentenced to 11 years in a maximum security colony and a fine of 160 million rubles.