«You can't shoot sparrows from a cannon»
On Friday it became known that the Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko proposed to the President of the Russian Federation three candidates for the post of head of the Accounts Chamber. The list included senator from the Kaluga region Anatoly Artamonov, acting. Head of the Accounts Chamber Galina Izotova and Deputy Head of the Control Department of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Boris Kovalchuk. «MK» collected the opinions of experts on how significant the figure of the chairman of the joint venture is in the course of its work?
Photo: website of the Accounts Chamber of Russia
The Accounts Chamber of Russia conducts an audit of state budget expenditures, checks federal departments and government organizations, monitors the implementation of national projects, and issues conclusions on bills, interacts with regional control and accounting bodies, informs society about the results of its work.
According to many business executives who have had to deal with specialists from the Russian Federation SP or local control and accounting bodies, very meticulous and meticulous employees work there. Local leaders are no less afraid of their inspection than by law enforcement officers. This is what the general director of one of the Moscow state enterprises in the housing and communal services sector says.
“The Accounts Chamber can conduct an audit and reveal a lot of violations where there was no malicious intent at all. For example, we once renovated a building housing a federal government agency, did everything properly, and then the Accounts Chamber gave us a verdict: “Misuse of budget funds.” It turns out that the building was a cultural heritage site and should be repaired by a contractor with the appropriate license, but our contractor did not have such a license. And no one cares that the renovation was done perfectly. “Misuse of funds” is like a sentence, and you can get a real sentence. Another time we carried out work on the heating network, we thought that we could get by with routine repairs, but in the process it turned out that we needed to completely change the pipeline — it was no longer a current, major repair, but we spent the money under the “current” heading. Again a violation, as a result we got another performance. We had to urgently return the money spent at the expense of our own profits, otherwise we could get an order from the joint venture, and then the materials would go to the investigative authorities,”
In the opinion of our interlocutor, the Federal Accounts Chamber should not deal with such small businessmen as his enterprise. For this there are his own superiors and law enforcement agencies.
“They need to deal with big projects, national programs. This is where the big bucks are made. And it turns out that the “account” checks state unitary enterprises, and we report on every ruble spent crookedly, and at the same time billions pass through the feds unaccounted for. They shoot sparrows from a cannon. I think that after Kudrin left the joint venture, there were no people left with such powerful charisma to resist large-scale embezzlers, so they took it out on us sinners,” complains the manager, who wished to remain anonymous.
“The Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation is a public controller that checks how effectively government organizations and structures spend budget funds, in fact, our taxpayers’ money. Therefore, the joint venture must quickly respond to signals from citizens on the ground. And if someone doesn’t want to live honestly, they should identify such things and hand over the inspection materials to law enforcement agencies. The Accounts Chamber, both federal and regional structures, have all the powers for this; they are enshrined in the Constitution,” says lawyer and human rights activist Irina Drozdova.
But in practice, the expert believes, things are often completely different. For example, regional control and accounting bodies (CABs) are firmly embedded in the vertical power structure. Heads of municipal and regional CSRs attend planning meetings with governors or mayors. They are the same representatives of the local elite as the heads of the local Ministry of Internal Affairs, the prosecutor's office, and the public chamber. In such conditions, it is very difficult to show integrity, i.e. Only individuals, such as the hero of the acclaimed film “The Fool,” says Irina, can go against the authorities.
“Of course, the result of the joint venture’s work will depend on the competence of the chairman and his professionalism — effective management is also needed in auditing. But it seems to me that no less important is how principled, honest, and able to resist administrative resources this person will be. I think that the president needs just such a person who can establish strict control over the expenditure of budget funds,” says Irina Drozdova.
As a human rights activist, she had to deal with corporate social responsibility and joint ventures more than once, and her impressions were the most contradictory. One day she received a signal that the employees of an orphanage in Nizhnevartovsk decided to pull off a scam with New Year's gifts for children. According to the documents, everything was in order, but in fact the sweet gifts weighed almost 2 times less, plus the sweets turned out to be expired. Irina agreed with the employees of the local accounting chamber to arrange an audit on December 31, this was not expected at the orphanage, and the scammers were caught by the hand. But there were other cases.
“I have been defending the rights of defrauded shareholders from the Moscow region for many years. Some of my clients are owners of apartments in residential complexes. First, they were deceived by the developer, who stole money, and the property remained unfinished for many years. Then the construction was continued by the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Citizens Participating in Shared Construction in the Moscow Region. This structure finances problematic housing construction projects using budget funds, with 30% of the funds coming from the regional budget and 70% from the federal budget. Therefore, the Fund must strictly control the actions of developers. But at my clients’ site, the Foundation’s employees, without looking, waved away the work acceptance certificates, without bothering to check their quality. As a result, according to the estimate, money was allocated for a complete replacement of the roof and facade panels, but in fact none of this was done. What then was the allocated money used for? And there were considerable funds there. Tens of millions were allocated for video cameras alone, with the help of which the Foundation was supposed to monitor the progress of work at the construction site, but in fact, instead of 150, all 3 cameras were installed. The most sophisticated of them costs no more than 50 thousand rubles, which means about 150 thousand rubles were spent, where then are the rest? And I collected a lot of such facts, I outlined all this in a statement addressed to the SP of the Russian Federation, since considerable federal funds were spent. However, the Accounts Chamber refused to conduct an audit of the Moscow Region Fund, citing the fact that work plans for 2024 had already been drawn up. In fact, they have the ability to conduct unscheduled inspections. I believe that they simply brushed aside our statement, ignored the facts of embezzlement of budget funds, they could have at least sent the materials to the regional control and accounting bodies, but instead they sent us a formal response,” says the expert.