Translated material
Touching the untouchables
Sergei Stepashin will try to check state corporations
Yesterday, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber Sergei Stepashin announced his department's readiness to check the use of budget funds by state corporations . “A new problem is conducting state audits in state corporations,” he said at the conference “Strategic Development of Russia and the Tasks of Control and Accounting Bodies.” This is really a problem: state corporations have not only received the legal opportunity to remove state property from state control, but can also avoid inspections of the effectiveness of their economic activities.Current legislation provides formal opportunities for new institutions to challenge the right of control by the state. True, experts interviewed by Vremya Novostey disagree on how realistic it is to take advantage of these opportunities.
“In our opinion, the current legislation does not create direct obstacles to the exercise of control, including in matters of settlements between state corporations and contractors, and their compliance with competitive and contractual discipline,” Mr. Stepashin emphasized separately. But if there are no obstacles, then why focus on it? If necessary, he came and checked.
After all, it is said in the law “On the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation” that “The Accounts Chamber... provides a unified system of control over the execution of the federal budget and the budgets of federal extra-budgetary funds” (Article 9). For this purpose, the agency is empowered to inspect all organizations that are in one way or another recipients of budget funds: “The control powers of the Accounts Chamber extend to all government bodies... also to local governments, enterprises, organizations, banks... and other associations, regardless of types and forms of ownership, if they receive, transfer, use funds from the federal budget.” The same applies to public and non-profit organizations in terms of their receipt and expenditure of federal budget funds (Article 12 of the law).
And state corporations are indeed direct recipients of budget funds; their capital is formed primarily from state contributions; only in the future will they begin to earn money themselves. New institutions are considered one of the forms of non-profit organizations and, accordingly, fall under the law on them - Article 7.1 of the federal law “On Non-Profit Organizations” is called “State Corporations”. In addition, the legal basis, goals and procedure for managing state corporations are contained in a separate law for each of them.
But there was one “but”. That very article 7.1 of the law “On Non-Profit Organizations” says: “Property transferred to a state corporation by the Russian Federation is the property of the state corporation.” It turns out that formally this money, at the moment it is transferred into the ownership of the corporation, ceases to be federal budget funds. Thus, they are no longer subject to the law on the Accounts Chamber.
This would not be critical if state corporations at least obeyed paragraphs 3 and 5 of Article 32 of the Law “On Non-Profit Organizations”. They, in particular, say that the “authorized body” has the right “to conduct inspections of the compliance of the activities of a non-profit organization, including the expenditure of funds and the use of other property, with the purposes provided for by its constituent documents.” And one more thing: “A non-profit organization is obliged to submit to the authorized body documents containing a report on its activities, on the personnel of its governing bodies, as well as documents on the expenditure of funds and the use of other property.” But the law contains a special clause regarding these obligations, which does not extend the effect of these clauses specifically to state corporations.
It turns out that the new structures that receive and spend public money cannot be approached from any direction? At least this is indicated by those who fear that state corporations may take advantage of this loophole for their own selfish purposes.
“State corporations receive quite large amounts of money as property. And this clause is clearly a corruption factor,” says Mikhail Delyagin, director of the Institute of Globalization Problems. “And I regard the statement of the Chairman of the Accounts Chamber as a propaganda statement. He understands that he has no legal basis for inspections. But he still warns that it would be better not to interfere with the activities of state auditors,” says Mr. Delyagin.
However, government experts believe that the Accounts Chamber has the right to fulfill its duties in full in relation to state corporations.
“There are no legal obstacles to inspections of state corporations. The Accounts Chamber also has this right, which is based on the law, which states that the powers of this department include checking the use of federal funds and federal property. There is also a constitutional provision in this regard. There is nothing in the laws on state corporations that contradicts this,” Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Legislation, supports Sergei Stepashin.
At the same time, experts do not deny that much will depend on whether the Accounts Chamber receives a political carte blanche to audit state corporations.
“But I would not count on the high efficiency of the Accounts Chamber’s activities in auditing state corporations,” warns economist Delyagin. “I think there shouldn’t be any problems here (with checking state corporations. - Ed. ). Every leader himself should be interested in trust in him, including from the state,” United Russia deputy Krasheninnikov is more optimistic.