In Karelia, a deputy accused the regional government of classifying data on bonuses to officials in the amount of 126.7 million rubles

Emilia Slabunova. Photo: Yabloko party website

The government of Karelia issued bonuses to officials for “achieving the indicators of executive authorities,” receiving 126.7 million rubles from the federal budget for this, but classified information about exactly what achievements they were awarded for. According to the From Karelia with freedom project, Emilia Slabunova, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia from the Yabloko party, stated this on October 15, speaking at a meeting of the Budget and Taxes Committee.

According to her, she sent a request to the government of Karelia, but was told that the information was classified. “I would like to see the indicators for which such large-scale payments have been made not for the first time,” Slabunova said.

Present at the meeting and... O. The Minister of Finance of the Republic, Alexander Klimochkin, also refused to provide deputies with data on the distribution of bonuses, saying only that the funds were allocated in June by the Russian government. “The documents at the federal level that were sent to us are marked “for official use.” Therefore, I cannot provide you with this data in the public space,” said the head of the republican Ministry of Finance ( quoted from Daily Karelia).

As Ilya Shumanov, head of Transparency International Russia, said in an interview with The Insider , information about payments to regional officials for effective work is usually not published, although it is not considered classified:

“As far as I understand, this information is not classified; it is simply not provided to Slabunova, citing confidentiality. They may be for official use, that is, they are not strictly secret, they are simply not for public distribution, like any other internal documents.

We have a presidential decree that defines the criteria by which the performance of senior executive officials in the regions is measured. There are twenty points by which efficiency is calculated, including, for example, the level of education, the level of poverty, the volume of housing construction, the number of people employed in small businesses, the growth rate of personal income, wages, and so on. The federal center allocates subsidies to those regions that meet the targets.

I don't remember this information being published anywhere. I think that if Slabunova turns to the prosecutor’s office with a demand to oblige the regional authorities to provide this information, then with a high degree of probability she will be able to obtain it.

It is easier for an opposition deputy not to give this information, so as not to escalate a wave of popular anger. Slabunova is a competent specialist and can write a request to the prosecutor’s office demanding that this data be provided.”

War expenses and classified government contracts

The representative of the head of the republic in the Legislative Assembly, Yuri Shabanov, at the same meeting accused Slabunova of not supporting “SVO”, since the deputy proposed spending 1.3 million rubles on the restoration of water pumps in the Pryazhinsky National District, which are necessary for the local population. According to Shabanov, Slabunova offered to take this money from the funds allocated to finance “support for the Northern Military District.”

Meanwhile, as Klimochkin reported , Karelia will allocate more than 208 million rubles to increase one-time payments to volunteers who entered into a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense to participate in the war in Ukraine. According to Important Stories estimates published in August, 4.6% of Karelia men aged 18 to 50 have already gone to war.

At the meeting on the budget and taxes, it also turned out that 302 million rubles are planned to be spent on maintaining the representative office of Karelia in Moscow.

Earlier in October, the Chronicles project, dedicated to corruption in the Northwestern Federal District, released an investigation into how regional authorities conclude government contracts without holding a competition, taking advantage of the fact that after the start of the war, the federal authorities allowed to hide information about government procurement as a way to combat the consequences sanctions. As it turned out, the son of former member of the Karelia Parliament from United Russia Leonid Beluga Roman received contracts for the construction of the visitor center of the White Sea Petroglyphs Museum. The cost of the order amounted to more than 600 million rubles.

Government contracts were awarded to construction companies owned by relatives of the Vice-Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Karelia Olga Shmaenik (United Russia). We are talking about contracts in Segezha for the reconstruction of the library building and non-residential premises for a children's clinic. As Chronicles writes, the cost of reconstruction of the library has increased by 30% (from 85 million to 112 million rubles). The clinic was supposed to be completed at the end of 2023, but the work is still not completed.