Page 28 - RusRPTMar19

2.16 Politics - misc
State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin reported on the preparation of a legislative initiative expanding the powers of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation to control the use of funds transferred to subsidiaries, which are created by state corporations and public law companies. The chamber is being beefed up to police the spending of Russia’s 83 regions and may also be given powers to over see the state-owned enterprises (SOE) and possibility even the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). Russia’s top liberal reformer ex-Finance Minister and co-head of the presidential council Alexei Kudrin was placed in charge of the Chamber last year – a measure of the new status of the organ. “In the near future, we plan to amend the Law on the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation and consider them in the spring session,” Volodin told Interfax. The current version of the law "On the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation" contains restrictions that complicate the full, operational control of the use of funds by subsidiaries created with the participation of the state, Volodin explained. Experts clarified to Interfax that if the amendment is adopted, the subsidiaries of such state corporations as Roskosmos, VEB.RF, Deposit Insurance Agency, Housing and Utilities Reform Fund, public law the company "Russian environmental operator" and several other government agencies
The US Treasury Department (USTD) formally lifted the April 6 round of sanctions on the companies belonging to Russian oligarch and Kremlin insider Oleg Deripaska, but left those that target the businessmen personally in place. As part of the deal state-owned bank VTB and a big creditor of Deripaska increased its stake in his energy holding EN+ to 22.27% from 7.65%, Vedomosti reported on January 28.
Russia has performed equally worse in Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index rankings during recent years. Russia’s overall point score has hardly changed since 2012. The 2018 index placed
28 RUSSIA Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com