The locomotive is coming

The prosecutor's office is not an obstacle to the reform of the Ministry of Railways

The government has become interested in the progress of the railway reform and intends to listen tomorrow to a message from the head of the Ministry of Railways, Nikolai Aksenenko, about what reforms are planned in his department next year. And the Duma became interested in corruption in the Ministry of Railways system, and yesterday deputies listened to a corresponding message from representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Railway workers will consider detailed results of the outgoing year and plans for the coming year at the December board of the Ministry of Railways. The government, according to Mr. Aksenenko, tomorrow will analyze the scheme according to which next year “large-scale work will be carried out to separate state and economic functions in railway transport.” Such work must be supported by a legislative framework. Therefore, the White House will have to evaluate draft changes and additions to the laws governing the activities of the Ministry of Railways. In addition, the minister hopes that the government will approve a program for restructuring the debt of the Ministry of Railways to budgets of various levels.

It is not known whether the government will give railway workers a deferment on debts, of which the Ministry of Railways has accumulated 29 billion rubles. This is exactly the amount calculated by the prosecutor’s office investigators who took up the “Aksenenko case” in October. The debt to the state budget arose due to the “illegal activities” of the Minister of Railways, Deputy Prosecutor General Valentin Semuchenkov said yesterday at a meeting of the Duma Commission on Combating Corruption. In 2000, the minister, according to Mr. Semuchenkov, illegally increased the staffing level of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Railways, which “resulted in the payment of an extra 87 million rubles to them as salaries.” In addition, with the sanction of the minister, according to the Deputy Prosecutor General, it was unreasonable to spend 17 million 356 thousand dollars to pay for business trips of employees.

In addition, Nikolai Aksenenko “illegally formed six centralized financial funds, where from 5 to 37% of the profits of each of the country’s 17 railways were allocated for a total amount of more than 20 billion rubles.” Because of such “activities,” the Ministry of Railways units did not pay taxes, which is why the state budget accumulated a multibillion-dollar debt.

However, Valentin Semuchenkov, before reporting the facts established by the investigation, reminded the Duma members of the existence of the “presumption of innocence.” Perhaps the Deputy Prosecutor General would not have announced the investigation data, especially since the investigation into the “Aksenenko case” has not been completed and, according to him, has been extended for another two months. The Duma members forced him to make the information public. Members of the parliamentary commission to combat corruption in the highest echelons of power gathered yesterday for a meeting with the readiness to announce that the Prosecutor General's Office does not fight corruption and even covers it up. The deputies refer not only to the “Aksenenko case”, but also to the cases of two deputy finance ministers, Andrei Vavilov and Vladimir Petrov, closed due to the “lack of corpus delicti”, as well as to the fact that the Prosecutor General’s Office did not establish facts of violation of the law by the Minister of Transport Sergei Frank and former Minister of Atomic Energy Evgeny Adamov.

The Duma members even prepared a draft appeal to the president, in which they asked to dismiss Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov and his first deputy Yuri Biryukov.

Therefore, Mr. Semuchenkov had to prove to the deputies with numbers and facts in his hands that his department was not asleep. As a result, the Duma members nevertheless accepted an appeal to the president, inviting him to develop and adopt a state program to combat corruption.

Victor KHAMRAEV