| Former Prime Minister of the Republic Anatoly Popov has been appointed the main plunderer of Chechen money. The exposure of the embezzlers of funds allocated for the restoration of Chechnya, announced recently by the President of the Republic Akhmat Kadyrov, took place on Friday at a special press conference in the Accounts Chamber: auditor Sergei Ryabukhin reported that in 2003 “misuse” amounted to more than 2 billion rubles. This amount is an order of magnitude higher than a year ago and represents almost half of total unearmarked spending since 2000. The answer to the logical question, why, despite all the successes of peaceful construction, theft in Chechnya has increased, from the point of view of the Accounts Chamber turned out to be very simple: ex-Prime Minister Anatoly Popov is to blame for everything.
According to Mr. Ryabukhin, 62 billion rubles have been allocated for the restoration of Chechnya since 2000. And during all this time, 5 billion rubles were lost: in the correct audit language this is called “spent with gross violations.” Most of the violations occurred in 2003. Mr. Ryabukhin explained that this time the Accounts Chamber did not check the accounting department retroactively, but worked “online” all year, simultaneously rechecking the materials of previous audits. It turns out that Akhmat Kadyrov himself specifically asked her about this last spring. As a result, according to Sergei Ryabukhin, a billion rubles were saved from theft and embezzlement. At the same time, additions (financing of work that no one carried out) were discovered in the amount of 69 million rubles. Another billion was wasted by making purchases in violation of competitive procedures, and a million was spent without any kind of competition at all. As a result, the volume of violations approached a quarter of the Chechen budget expenditures.
In previous years, the volume of non-targeted expenses revealed by the Accounts Chamber was significantly lower - 711 million for 2001 and 360 million for 2002. Of the two options for explaining the unpleasant dynamics - they used to check worse or now they steal more - auditors clearly prefer the second. Mr. Ryabukhin said that the Accounts Chamber “has claims against Anatoly Aleksandrovich Popov - both as the head of the federal directorate for the restoration of the economy and social sphere of Chechnya, and as the chairman of the Chechen government. The Accounts Chamber believes that Mr. Popov chose the wrong ideology for using budget funds. “Why ideological claims are being made only now is not entirely clear: the mechanism of financing Chechnya has not changed significantly in recent years. But the matter, apparently, will not be limited to the area of ideology: when asked by the Vremya Novostei newspaper about the judicial prospects of the “claims,” Sergei Ryabukhin answered that The materials of the Accounting Chamber have already been transferred to the prosecutor's office of Chechnya, and they have already announced that they are going to initiate a number of criminal cases.
Mr. Popov himself, who plans to run for governor of the Volgograd region in December, believes that what is happening resembles a political order. According to him, he acted exclusively within the framework of his powers, and “in principle, there can be no misuse of funds, since there are a large number of regulatory authorities.” Including the Accounts Chamber, which this year and before has repeatedly checked both the directorate and the Chechen government. Without a competition, according to Anatoly Popov, financing for any objects or purchases simply cannot be opened. “And if they talk about some additions to the scope of work, then let them deal with those who made these additions.”
Obviously, Mr. Popov means the contractors themselves, that is, the Chechen builders. They, in turn, are connected with both district and republican officials, without whose consent the builders would not only not have approved a single estimate, but simply would not have been able to take part in competitions. If the theft case really gets going, all these mechanisms will be brought to light, and this will inevitably affect the interests of many officials both in the republic and at the federal level, and in the regulatory organizations themselves. But for now, it seems, they decided to “sort it out” only with the dismissed prime minister. For everyone else, the Accounts Chamber went out of its way and wrote a new, ideologically verified concept of Chechen restoration. According to Sergei Ryabukhin, by the summer the federal government will approve these proposals, and then the recovery will certainly get better. The plan is extremely simple: “Scan everything that exists in the financial sector of Chechnya and in the real sector of the economy, understand what else should take place there, and develop tools with which this can be achieved.” It is not yet known for certain what kind of new tools the Accounts Chamber is going to use in Chechnya. But the Chechen thieves seem to have everything in order with their tools: yesterday, for example, they stole two metal supports of a high-voltage line near Achkhoy-Martan. Ivan SUKHOV |
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