If the antimonopoly department does not support the monopolist, then with whom will it fight? Recently, the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy (MAP) and its head, Ilya Yuzhanov, have been increasingly haunted by big and small troubles. At the end...

If the antimonopoly department does not support the monopolist, then with whom will it fight?

IN

Recently, the Ministry of Antimonopoly Policy (MAP) and its head, Ilya Yuzhanov, have been increasingly haunted by big and small troubles. At the end of last year, for example, the president said that small and medium-sized businesses in Russia are developing in spite of the state - a direct reproach to the "profile" department.

And in the spring, MAP did not manage to challenge the order of the State Customs Committee, which regulates the preferential import of foreign cars.

Claims to the petrol oligarchs, who raised the summer prices for fuel, were presented for some reason with a delay of a couple of months - and without visible success. One of the territorial departments of the antimonopoly department, which risked affecting the interests of Lukoil and Yukos, remained, as they say, in its own interests. MAP's failures in many months of litigation with the Federal Securities Commission and the Bank of Moscow are more like just an anecdote.

Against the backdrop of the increasingly silent minister, the activity of his deputy, Anatoly Golomolzin, a forty-two-year-old candidate of economic sciences, is especially noticeable. However, this activity is understandable. Especially on the eve of a new political season with indispensable personnel changes in power structures. After all, no one wants to lose their chair for the company of the boss.

A member of the boards of directors of OAO LUKOIL, OAO AK Transneft, OAO Svyazinvest, the government commission for transport, the official representative of the government during the consideration by the chambers of the Federal Assembly of the draft law "On Natural Monopolies" - this is all Anatoly Golomolzin, a man of versatile interests and broad circle of communication.

At the end of spring, Golomolzin actively undertook to promote the idea born in the depths of the MAP on the urgent organization of exchange trading in petroleum products. And it only seems that the efforts of Anatoly Nikolayevich "to establish special control over the oil products market during the summer period" did not give anything. Oil initiatives provided Golomolzin with a month of media attention and in this sense proved to be quite effective.

However, by failing to implement the exchange idea, which, by the way, was partly supported by TNK and Sibneft, Anatoly Nikolayevich did not upset his long-time patrons, among whom, as they say, the ex-Minister of Fuel and Energy Viktor Kalyuzhny and the owner of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov. The latter, as one might assume, does not need exchange trading in petroleum products at all.

And recently, Anatoly Nikolayevich said that it is urgent to equalize electricity tariffs for the population with industrial ones - with the simultaneous liberalization (that is, "increase") of both, which, one must think, pleased the omnipotent Chubais no less than his boss. They say that when enterprises rise, the population will “indirectly feel” all the benefits of the energy reform.

Or the problems of the development of the communications industry are being discussed - and here the Deputy Minister shows genuine interest in obtaining GSM licenses by foreign cellular operators. And there is no need to hint at lobbying by a state official of the interests of either Russian or foreign private companies. A person simply makes a public career, strives to be in the public eye.

It doesn't matter how events develop in MAP. Will Minister Yuzhanov get rid of the active deputy, as he got rid of other already former deputies - Prokopiev, Bogachev and Fonareva. Or give up his place to the same Golomolzin. Another thing is important: the antimonopoly department is increasingly turning into an instrument for lobbying the interests of domestic monopolies and financial and industrial groups.