Previously, mass media pointed to indications of fraud in the tender

Press Release, 20.05.2020

Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre demanded that the Investigative Committee check the heads of the State Public Institution Information City for a crime under Article 285 of the Criminal Code. According to mass media reports, before that the contractor in the development of the Social Monitoring tracing application had written the technical task for another tracing application for the Mayor’s Office which had been bought by the Mayor’s Office to control the builders in the Mayor’s Moscow renovation project (building new housing instead of pulled down houses built in 1960s).

In March, the BBC Russian Service found out that the application for tracing people during the COVID-19 quarantine was developed by the Gaskar Integration company. Prior to this, the structure of the Department of Information Technology – the State Public Institution Information City – had purchased from Gaskar the services of development and completion of an application for renovation under two contracts: for 53 and 178 million roubles. The Daily Storm media found out that the technical task for the first tender had been written by the commercial director of Gaskar.

The tracing application by Gaskara (“Smart Helmet”) is suspiciously reminiscent of the functionality and features of the “Social Monitoring” tracing app. According to journalists, Gaskar may be associated with Marat Khusnullin, Deputy Chairman of the Russian government.

Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre also found out that the competitor of Gaskar in the development of applications for the Mayor’s Office – the Mirit company – had not even tried to bargain in the tender for 178 million roubles. It reduced the initial price by 0 roubles. According to Alexei Karnaukhov, Director of Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre and municipal deputy of the Khamovniki district of Moscow, two factors are indicative of the personal interest of officials: the reluctance of the alleged competitor to win tenders at all costs of participation in the procurement and the absence of penalties for the contractor for poor quality work.

“Eduard Lysenko, head of the Moscow Department of Information Technologies, must answer not only for gross errors in the application due to which people receive unreasonable fines. It is important that with his connivance or active participation, budget money was wasted, and the company associated with officials received the benefit. I believe that Lysenko should report on expenses, and the Investigative Committee should check the structures of the department for corruption,” Karnaukhov notes.

Karnaukhov demanded that Lysenko disclose the details of the development of the Social Monitoring tracing application. The letter with a demand to check the case for signs of corruption were sent to the Moscow Office of the Investigative Committee.

It should be noted that earlier the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma appealed to the Moscow Public Prosecutor Denis Popov urging him to check the validity of administrative fines imposed via the Social Monitoring mobile application.