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Vyacheslav Lebedev: Interior Ministry the
Most Corrupt Structure in Russia
By Ivan Petrov
Supreme Court Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev called the Interior Ministry one of
the worst corrupt structures. As of 2010, police officers and their families
will have to declare income (this information is to be restricted to the
Interior Ministry only and
withheld from the general public). Experts doubt the effectiveness of this measure.
They point out that a campaign is underway to present the Interior Ministry as a
den of corruption even though other state institutions including the Federal
Security Service or FSB, customs, and executive power structures are no less
corrupt.
"Bribes are particularly frequent in structures of the Interior Ministry,
Health Care Ministry, Ministry of Education," Lebedev told the Federation
Council, yesterday.
The
new anti-corruption legislation demands that police officers and their
immediate families (spouses and juvenile children) declare income. According to
Vladimir Kikot of the Interior Ministry Staff Department, income declarations
are to be submitted to the Interior Ministry for verification by the Directorate
of Internal Security. Refusal to declare income or incorrect and/or incomplete
information will mean instant dismissal.
"Inspectors who do not belong to the Interior Ministry itself are needed
for [the legislation] to have the desired effect. Say, someone from the
FSB," said Mikhail Pashkin of the Moscow Police Trade Union. "Besides,
income declarations should be made available to the general public. Last but
not least, incorrect data in income
declarations should entail prosecution... Otherwise It will be yet another
feeding trough for inspectors. The population and nobody else will carry the
cost of this measure. Bosses will have to bribe inspectors so that they
themselves will demand larger sums from their subordinates who in their turn
will have to milk the population all the more vigorously."
"No, I do not think that the Interior Ministry will ever publish the results
of the verification," National Anti-Corruption Committee Chairman Kirill
Kabanov said. "Washing dirty linen in public is not for the Interior
Ministry. I doubt that anything
will change as of next year."
"Declaration
of income in itself is not an anti-corruption measure," Yelena Panfilova
of Transparency International, Russian division, agreed. "It's not going
to work."
Experts
say that attempts are being made these days to present the Interior Ministry as
the worst corrupt structure in all of Russia. "It is not [the most
corrupt]," Kabanov said. "All non-transparent structures are corrupt.
The FSB, for example. There is no clear
proof, but indirect evidence confirms the validity of this premise."
"The
Interior Ministry may be the leader in the number of bribes indeed,"
Pashkin said. "Where the scope of corruption is concerned, however, the courts
and prosecutor's offices are no better than the Interior Ministry. Bribes there
may be less frequent, but
they more than make up for it in size."
This material originally appeared at RBK
Daily on May 28, 2009. It is posted here on the fair use principle
Vyacheslav Lebedev: Interior Ministry the
Most Corrupt Structure in Russia
