Page 32 - RusRPTApr21

2.14 Politics - misc
The Duma passed the first reading of a bill that will protect officials from being prosecuted for “accidental” corruption on March 11. What is accidental corruption, you may ask? It’s not quite as silly as the headlines make it sound. The goal of the legislation is the protect officials, judges, federal and local Duma deputies, and employees of state-owned companies who violate anti-corruption laws due to “circumstances beyond their control.” These circumstances include natural disasters, fires, pandemics, labour strikes, military conflict, terrorist acts, and sanctions. And the law is less about protecting those that commit corruption than it is about protecting officials who unintentionally fail to comply with anti-corruption safeguards such as asset declarations or disclosing conflicts of interest.
Norilsk Nickel has paid the record RUB146bn ($2bn) fine for its diesel spill last spring—the largest environmental penalty in Russian history. Despite the accident occurring in Russia’s Arctic city of Norilsk, almost all of the funds were sent to the federal budget. Moscow received RUB145bn rubles as compensation for damage to Russia’s waterways, and Norilsk received RUB685mn for damage to the surrounding land. Environmental activists have criticized this distribution of funds, noting that while Russia’s environmental watchdog assessed the cost of the spill’s damage at $2bn, almost none of it is being spent to clean up the affected areas. Putin tried to publicly allay this criticism during a meeting with the government on March 10. He noted that it’s impossible to spend that much money effectively in the short term. But the government should plan to spend the $2bn to improve the environment around Norilsk in the medium to long term.
Russian public officials' accounts will begin to be checked for compliance with declared income. The prosecutor's office will also check the accounts of their spouses and minor children. The funds of officials convicted of corruption will be withdrawn in favor of the state. The corresponding bill was submitted to the State Duma by the government on March 23. The initiative concerns all civil servants who are required to provide information about their income and property. The bill introduces amendments to the law “On banks and banking activities”, and also supplements the law “On combating corruption” with a new article “Control over the legality of receiving funds”. It provides for the prosecutor's check of accounts opened in the names of officials, their spouses and minor children. If the amounts received on the accounts exceed their total income for three years by more than 10,000 rubles, a procedure will be launched to withdraw these funds to the state budget through the courts. The currently existing anti-corruption mechanism makes it possible to turn into the income of the Russian Federation only land plots, real estate objects, vehicles, securities and cash equivalent to the value of such property, it is noted in the explanatory note to the bill. But money of unknown origin, which ended up in the accounts of officials, is still not subject to this procedure.
32 RUSSIA Country Report April 2021 www.intellinews.com