For the first time in the Urals, a criminal case has been initiated due to red tape by officials

The Chelyabinsk police opened a criminal case, unprecedented for the Ural Federal District, on the fact of obstruction of business activities by officials (Article 169 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The reason was the inaction of Chebarkul administration officials, who for eight months refused to give the local company Alfa permission to put into operation a market complex. Experts are confident that it will be difficult for the investigation to prove the guilt of specific officials.

As the Chelyabinsk Region Prosecutor's Office told Kommersant, a criminal case on the basis of obstruction of legitimate business activity (Article 169 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) was opened by investigators from the Chebarkul intermunicipal department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It involves unidentified employees of the administration of the Chebarkul urban district. “The case was initiated based on the materials of the prosecutor’s investigation. The reason for this was red tape when the Chebarkul administration issued permission to commission a market complex on the street. Karpenko, 22,” the prosecutor’s office noted. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation in the Urals Federal District, the criminal case is unprecedented for the entire federal district.

According to Kommersant's information, we are talking about a conflict between the Chebarkul administration and Alfa LLC (according to the Interfax-SPARK system, it is owned by Moscow businessman Anatoly Kutny). In 2009, the company leased land plots with a total area of 3.8 thousand square meters. meters, where she planned to erect a complex of buildings for trade and procurement activities. In 2012, the administration arbitrarily revoked one of the company’s land plots and denied the company permission to build facilities. In 2013, through the arbitration court, the company managed to obtain the necessary documents, but after the commissioning of the facility, from February to September 2014, they could not obtain permits to put the market complex into operation. As it turned out during the prosecutor's audit, city officials were unable to explain to prosecutors on what grounds Alpha's application was not considered by a specialized interdepartmental commission.

The Alpha company confirmed yesterday that they are victims in a criminal case. “We were really delayed in the process of issuing documents, and we were forced to contact all authorities. After Sergei Kovrigin began to deal with housekeeping issues in the city administration, replacing Alexei Safonov as vice mayor (he is in custody in the case of accepting bribes - Kommersant), there are no problems with our facilities,” noted the director of Alpha. Vladimir Potapenko, refraining from disclosing investigation data. Representatives of the Chebarkul administration also refused detailed comments yesterday. “We can only confirm that this case is being investigated by the police,” said the press secretary of the head of the city district, Lyubov Rudometova.

Experts interviewed by Kommersant believe that it will be difficult for the investigation to prove the guilt of specific officials. “This composition presupposes the presence of intent in the actions of a particular official. Just find and prove the person involved and it will be extremely difficult. Typically, such disputes end at the stage of complaints to the prosecutor’s office, which then demands that officials comply with the law,” noted Svetlana Korabel, director of the legal agency Jus Kogens. According to the business ombudsman of the Chelyabinsk region, Alexander Goncharov, the very fact of initiating a case under this article is important. “We have been trying for a long time to get this article to work. So that officials understand responsibility for their actions and begin to answer for red tape. At the moment, it turns out that because of their red tape, entrepreneurs are losing their money, which is then seized from the treasury through the courts. And in the end, no one is responsible for this. Officials must understand that everyone is equal before the law - both entrepreneurs and municipal employees,” noted Alexander Goncharov.

Igor Lesovskikh

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