Press Release, 17.08.2018

Yabloko party Chairperson Emilia Slabunova sent an appeal to Alexei Kudrin, Chairman of the Russian Accounts Chamber, demanding to check the effectiveness of spending Russia’s budget funds for the restoration of the Capitol’s dome in Havana, the capital of Cuba. At the same time, Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre appealed to the Federal Antimonopoly Service with a request to check the feasibility study of the project.

On 16 August, 2018, the Russian President’s Property Management placed a tender for performance of work for restoration of the gold coating on the dome of the National Capitol in Havana, Cuba. The cost of restoration totals 642.4 million roubles. The President’s Property Management classified the substantiation of the price. Spending the federal budget funds on the needs of another state was not substantiated either.

When most of Russian regions have scanty budgets and we are the ongoing debate on raising the retirement age due to a shortage of budgetary funds, the decision to allocate funds for gilding the dome of a friendly state looks like a cynical mockery of the country’s residents, Emilia Slabunova points out in her address to the head of the Russian Accounts Chamber.

According to Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre, such procurement violates the provisions of Article 34 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation – the principle of budgetary efficiency. Also it is not substantiated in accordance with Article 18 of the Law on the Contract System. Instead of justifying the price the procurement schedule gives a reference to the non-state expertise. The files of the justification for procurement are stamped “for official use only”. According to Yabloko’s anticorruption experts, secrecy of procurement documents contradicts the law on the contract system.

“Under the present rules, the President and the Government can arbitrarily conduct purchases from a single supplier. But the price and method of procurement should be justified in the plan-chart. Information should be open in accordance with Article 4 of the law on the contract system. Data can be hidden only on the basis of the law in the case of state secrets. However, the law does not provide for a variant of classifying information under the pretext that it is “for official use only”, says Alexei Karnaukhov, deputy head of the Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre.

The party’s lawyers also paid attention to the spelling error in the description of the purchase: it can prevent activists from monitoring the tender.

Earlier, Yabloko offered limiting the ability of the President and the Government to conduct procurement without competition of the contractors due to high corruption risks.