Report who can

Foreign NGOs learn the intricacies of Russian bureaucracy

Foreign non-governmental organizations working in Russia are taking another “survival test.” By the end of this week, or more precisely, until April 15, all NGOs must report on their financial activities to the Federal Registration Service and tax authorities, as required by the new legislation. It is still difficult to judge how much further the number of representative offices of foreign NGOs will decrease in our country, which has already significantly decreased after last year’s re-registration. But those who remain to work in Russia say they intend to get the authorities to simplify the procedure for submitting reports.

Difficulties in compiling reports were mainly formal. As Elena Komarova, the financial director of the Russian representative office of the Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS organization, told Vremya Novostey, those who actively distribute grants inevitably encountered problems. “If the grant amount exceeds 10 thousand rubles, you will have to provide very detailed information about the grantee, including his date of birth, place of residence, citizenship and even the address of residence in the country of which he is a resident, if the grantee is not a citizen Russia,” she explained. -- If the grant is provided to a legal entity, then there should be no less detail: the report must indicate all the details, including the date of registration and registration number. We didn’t have many such cases, but if an NGO has a number of grant recipients in the dozens, this will require additional time and effort.”

In addition, according to the new requirements, a charitable organization or foundation must provide information not only about the grantee himself, but also about how exactly he spent the money, that is, require a report from him too. Moreover, the report is also needed if grants were provided at the very beginning of 2006, when amendments to the law on non-profit organizations had not yet been signed by the president, and no one expected that such documents would be required. This also, according to Ms. Komarova, complicates the work on the documentation that must be submitted to Rosregistration.

In principle, the essence of all the problems has already been voiced to the Russian authorities by representatives of foreign NGOs. At the beginning of April, a round table was held at the Public Chamber, during which it was planned to adopt an appeal to the authorities. However, so far there is no cohesion in the ranks of social activists - everyone is fighting the bureaucracy alone. Moreover, some people do not have problems with Rosregistration. For example, the head of the Moscow office of Amnesty International, Sergei Nikitin, told a Vremya Novostei correspondent yesterday that the human rights organization submitted its report back in March. “The accountant did not complain,” admitted Mr. Nikitin.

However, he still noted that the preparation of reporting documents for almost all representative offices was complicated due to the lack of clear information from Russian officials. “Colleagues complained that it was impossible to get any clarification, Rosregistration didn’t answer the phone, and if they managed to get answers to questions, they were given orally, and in a year it would be impossible to refer to them,” says Mr. Nikitin . - The fate of the reports is also unknown - we send them by mail, and a simple arithmetic calculation shows that there are not enough people in the entire registration service to check them. They will not be able to cope with the flow of documents that are now required under the new law.” According to the human rights activist, his colleagues representing purely Russian non-governmental organizations have even more difficulties: “As representatives of the organization “Man and Law” from Yoshkar-Ola told me, they had to assign a special employee who compiled a report that ultimately took 50 pages.” .

The Federal Registration Service does not comment on the end of the reporting period and does not discuss the sufficiency or insufficiency of employees. However, previously, representatives of the service have repeatedly stated in the press that the difficulties with preparing documents are exaggerated, and any person “with average development” can draw them up. Officials, however, said the same thing about last year’s re-registration, from which a considerable part of foreign NGOs still cannot recover. They do not submit reports on their activities to Rosregistration only because they still live in limbo. “Since May 18 last year, 2006—almost a year—we have not been working,” the head of one representative office, who wished to remain anonymous, complained to a Vremya Novostei correspondent. — At first there was a tedious registration procedure, collecting documents, waiting. When this process was completed and we were re-registered in Russia, an equally lengthy procedure began for obtaining accreditation from the Ministry of Education and Science, and again collecting documents. And now we are waiting for accreditation and still cannot start working.”

Irina BELASHEVA