Press release, 15.03.2016

Member of YABLOKO Federal Political Committee and Chair of Moscow YABLOKO Sergei Mitrokhin forwarded an appeal to the President of Russia with the demand to dismiss Dmitry Pegov, Moscow Metro Chief.

Mitrokhin claims that Pegov is not capable of arranging stable and smooth running work of the metro which is the life supporting basis of the megalopolis.

Sergei Mitrokhin notes that the metro system failures have become more frequent for the time of Pegov’s work. 23 high profile failures took place just for the period from 12 August, 2014, until 9 March, 2016.

In his application, Mitrokhin enumerates the stations where the failures took place.

“Moreover, at the moment one cannot fully eliminate the risk of terrorist attacks at the metro. Therefore I believe that Pegov’s activity have demonstrated that he can hardly ensure the protection of the metro and its passengers,” Mitrokhin says.

The capital repairs of the vestibules and the adjoined pedestrian underpasses should have been accomplished by the end of 2015.

YABLOKO Anticorruption Centre analysed the public procurement website and found that about 6.5 billion rubles from the budget had been spent on the repair works of 85 metro stations. See the following table.

“The time of the completion of work is being extended constantly but, on the contrary, the customer is granting new benefits to the suppliers on the grounds of additional agreements. For example, the costumer undertakes to pay not 30 per cent of the work that has been done, as it was specified at first, but 70 per cent. Or the customer provides an advance of 20 per cent and later increases it to 60 per cent. So, if the supplier fails to cope with the work, the customer lets him do it instead of filing a claim. Moreover, the customer is able to change the essence of the contract, though, according the contract, the parties undertook not to make any changes. How can the Moscow Metro [Chief] be so generous?” lawyer of YABLOKO Anticorruption Centre Alexei Karnaukhov comments.