A amount equal to 6% of Russia's GDP is spent on kickbacks in the field of public procurement. So officials are insured by any surprises

“The figure of the day”: 6 trillion 600 billion rubles - the volume of bribes in the field of public procurement.

Scientists from the Institute of State and Municipal Administration of the Higher School of Higher Professional Education calculated the hellish figure. The authors of the study interviewed more than 1,200 representatives of companies from different regions of the country participating in competitive procedures, and asked them questions about the personal experience of the implementation of the state order. 53% of respondents from the sample are represented by micro -enterprises, 34% are small business, 6% - medium and about 7% - large.

28% of respondents refrained from a direct answer to the question about bribes or refused to answer. But on the basis of respondents' answers to indirect questions, the researchers established: at least two of each three companies (71%) indicated the existence of “informal payments to customer representatives”.

The dimensions of the bribe were called in the range from 3 to 65% of the cost of the state contract. More often than others were numbers - 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20%.

The “zero amount” of the bribe was called 14% of the respondents. The result of the conspiracy - either vertical (with a supplier) or horizontal (between bidders) - was every third state contract (37%).

In total, entrepreneurs recalled about 2300 cases in which they called the average rollback (including zero). This was a sample for calculations.

Researchers summed up all the mentioned sizes of informal payments. They summarized all the size of the contracts and divided the first to the second. As a result, the average percentage of “informal payments” amounted to 22.5% of the contract amount.

Well, in absolute numbers, it turned out 6.6 trillion rubles (about $ 90 billion).

What is 6 trillion 600 billion rubles?

For comparison: this is approximately 6.2% of Russia's GDP, or 35.3% of the revenue of the federal budget, or two defense budgets of the Russian Federation (3.4 trillion rubles a year), or three budgets of law enforcement agencies (2.3 trillion rubles), or six annual budgets of the entire system of Russian higher education (1.1 trillion rubles per year).

Pay for distrust

But you don’t have to think that if the bosses did not take bribes, then we would have increased the costs of education with healthcare.

A third of the revenue part of the budget, which passes into the hands of respected people in power, is no longer corruption, this is macroeconomics, a system.

6% of GDP make up bribes (and this is only on public procurement, not counting all the others, excluding other “illegal payments”).

Corruption has turned into a national industry. It has become an economic factor that determines the direction and pace of development of the country. Control tool.

Imagine that this money will suddenly cease to be paid: how many restaurants, boutiques, beauty salons, design bureau will immediately close. How many creative people will lose their jobs.

In 2020, on public procurements carried out in the framework of 44-ФЗ (regulates the purchases of state bodies) and 223-ФЗ (regulates the purchases of state-owned companies), state customers spent 29.1 trillion rubles. The system of "public procurement" we have one of the most "digitalized". Special laws. Tenders. Competitions. Checks. Digital signatures. Every penny is considered. The mouse will not slip.

But go. It turns out that the most difficult and transparent system of public procurement allows you to drag every 16th ruble in the country.

In fact, the problem of “bribes for state orders” is a derivative of the key problem of the Russian economy: the complete lack of trust between economic agents and a high level of risks of economic activity, completely inadequate expected income.

How does this work?

We will put ourselves in the place of an official who has to do something with state money. This means that he has to give this money (no matter-large or small) to some kind of person who is taken to perform a state order (it does not matter to build a sea bridge or a street toilet).

But the official is aware that he has no official mechanism to force this person to fulfill his obligations.

A person will take money, but the order will not complete. And then?

If the unscrupulous executor of the state order has a high patron, then the official’s attempt to act “by law” will immediately show that there is no “law”.

As many as examples we know when the official honestly tries to force the state order executor to do the work in accordance with the contract, but it turns out that such an “authority” of such an executor is more than the official is right, and his patrons occupy such positions that it is better not to pronounce them.

Of course, the official can try to use purely power tools of power, but its attributes, like an automatic trunk or baton, will help to intimidate the entrepreneur, but will not help quality construction.

The negligent builder can even be hot in prison, but neither the bridge nor the toilet will build themselves. But the “share of 20%” from the amount of the order, and even paid forward, is quite a significant guarantee that the contractor has sufficient means, knows the “rules of the game”, is included in the circle of those who can be rich, and is generally configured to fulfill the obligations within the contract. The rollback is a kind of “qualification norm” of the entrepreneur, a guarantee of the seriousness of the executor’s intentions and at the same time checking it.

If you are not able to present such a guarantee - is it worth it to deal with you at all, the official thinks. Nothing personal, this is just a business.

But the same story takes place from the entrepreneur. How can a contractor force the official to transfer the money due to him after completing the order? "In law"? This is not even funny. There is no motivation to give “state money” to some kind of person who “won” some kind of competition, the official does not have and cannot.

And even more so, the official has no motivation to somehow guarantee the safety of the activity of this entrepreneur.

But the official who received these “20% of the order” has a motivation not only to fulfill his official obligations under the contract, but also to protect such an entrepreneur from arbitrariness from respected colleagues.

In the absence of other reliable institutions, a bribe becomes a key that ensures the motivation of both parties to the transaction. Or, if you want, an insurance premium, the amount of which is determined by the degree of risk of non -fulfillment of the terms of the contract with both parties.

Lubricating the economic wheel

And do not say that these 6% of GDP, turning into the hands of the administrators of the state order, damage entrepreneurial activity. They have long become an integral part of all economic activity.

In the study “Influence of the administrative load and participation of business in corruption on revenue: Grease vs Sand Effect” M.Yu. Malkina (NSU named after N.I. Lobachevsky) and V.N. Ovchinnikova (NIFI of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation), published in the "Journal of the New Economic Association (NEA)" (2020, No. 3 (47), the following says:

“The close interaction of companies with regulatory authorities had a significant positive effect for the financial result of the economic activities of such companies.

If the top management spent more than half of his working time in communicating with instances, the company's revenue increased by 34%.

Comparison of the results of legal and illegal interaction of firms with state bodies (34% of revenue increase against 100%) demonstrates the greater efficiency of corruption interaction (for countries with an imperfect institutional environment). ”

At the same time, it turned out that investments in R&D do not give any increase in revenue to companies. At least such positive ties in the short -term period were not revealed.

And the entire infrastructure of “business support” is not needed for real business success. “Variating access to infrastructure did not have a statistically significant impact on the financial result of companies.” The only thing the business asks for the government is about the roads: “The lack of access to transport infrastructure was embodied in reducing revenue,” the study says.

“As a result of the study, it was possible to prove that in the countries under consideration, both corruption and prolonged communication of firms with instances are able to increase the revenue of economic agents. A strict confirmation of the hypothesis about the prevalence of the Grease the Wheels effect (“lubrication of the wheels”) over the effect of Sand the Wheels (“clogging of the wheels”) - both for legal and illegal business interaction with the state ”.

“The hypothesis of a more positive effect of corruption interaction was confirmed compared to the legal interaction of firms with state bodies - for countries with an imperfect institutional environment.”

Countries with an “imperfect institutional environment” mentioned in the study are Albania, Belarusia, Georgia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Russia, Poland, Romania, countries of the former Yugoslavia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia, Latvia. Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria. That is, the former "East Bloc" plus Türkiye.

You can’t deceive the economy. In the Middle Ages, there were no fair courts either - and the right was on the side of the strong. Power and money meant the same thing, and the entrepreneur, deprived of power and rights, paid for every step, every minute buying protection from arbitrariness and violence or access to the resource that was controlled by power.

This means that 6% of GDP for bribes and rollbacks is just a statement of medieval nature of the existing administrative device.

If you live according to medieval rules, do not be surprised that the economy will be arranged, as in the Middle Ages.