| The police were again called upon to change lanes The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation at an extended meeting of the board yesterday summed up the work of its department over the past year. Formally, the event went off without surprises. President Vladimir Putin, who usually pays special attention to all law enforcement agencies on such politically important days, did not come to the ministry. Instead, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov arrived to hear the report from law enforcement officers and give them instructions. His performance also did not look fateful outwardly. The head of government criticized the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in all areas, which can already be considered a good tradition. However, the words chosen by Mr. Fradkov involuntarily gave rise to new conversations on the sidelines of the ministry about imminent possible changes.
The fact is that vague but persistent rumors about the continuation of the reform of the security bloc undertaken by President Putin last summer began circulating in the intelligence services since December. Yesterday, Mikhail Fradkov, among other things, noted that “a radical restructuring of the internal affairs bodies is necessary to combat terrorism” and “there is no need to talk about any targeted fight against corruption.” However, what exactly this could mean - the future “improvement” of the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself, the “restructuring” of other departments or new personnel appointments - no one dared to predict yesterday.
Having opened the meeting of the board, Mr. Fradkov harshly went over almost all parameters of the work of the police. Speaking about corruption, the prime minister noted that last year only 7 thousand cases of bribery were revealed in the country, which does not reflect the scale of the real state of affairs. “We need to cleanse the system of bribe-takers and unscrupulous employees who have turned the service into a type of business, and a very profitable one,” said Mr. Fradkov. According to him, the government plans to continue to pay special attention to the logistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, material and social support for its employees. At the same time, the head of government recalled that last year the department’s funding as a whole was increased by 39%, and already this year by another 17%. But Mr. Fradkov did not give hope for a quick resolution of the most painful police problem - low salaries: “It is obvious that we will not be able to provide you with the level of funds that businessmen use, not to mention the criminals you encounter face to face. However, it is necessary to form a special attitude towards debt, which should not be determined by the size of the monetary reward. The time has come to seriously develop an adequate system of employee motivation; we need to work on this and not delay it.”
As for the main task of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - strengthening the rule of law, then, as the prime minister said, “there are untapped reserves here, to put it mildly, there is still a practice of hiding crimes from being recorded, violating the rights of citizens, violating the rule of law by the employees of the authorities themselves.” Also, without going into too much detail, Mr. Fradkov criticized the problem of fighting terrorism, calling on the police to “prevent a repeat of a crisis like Beslan,” for which “preventive actions are necessary.” The Prime Minister called the contribution of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the fight against economic crime “significant, but insufficient,” calling for an end to the criminal redistribution of property, including through hostile takeovers. This task, however, has been set by high officials at the final collegiums of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for at least the last five years, and it did not give any result.
Afterwards, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, took the floor and fully acknowledged the criticism against his department, not only from Mr. Fradkov, but also expressed several weeks ago by Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov at the final board meeting of his department.
It is worth noting that yesterday, while my colleagues were passing by, another piece of news came to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one way or another related to the future of the ministry or other security services. It became known that President Putin finally signed a decree appointing a number of heads of departments and directorates of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Formally, the reform of the ministry was completed in the fall, but then in reality only its new structure was formed. Several hundred senior officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, whose positions according to the state are “general”, have since been “hanging in the air.” They were not confirmed (this requires a presidential decree), but worked in a “temporary capacity.” It is clear that this could not but introduce some uncertainty into the work of the ministry. And, by the way, this is precisely what fueled rumors that the security reform has not yet been completed. The situation was partly corrected yesterday, but it immediately became clear that, according to preliminary data, deputy ministers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were not included in the “approved” list. According to the reform standards, there should be four of them left in the ministry, but in fact there are still more than a dozen such positions, and all of them are occupied. Victor PAUKOV |
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