"Bad signal for the elites..." What the new plan to fight corruption threatens the officials with

The portal of legal information published the decree of President Vladimir Putin on the approval of the national plan to combat corruption for 2021-2024 and the text of this plan itself, which takes about 30 pages.

For the first time such a document was adopted in 2008 by President Dmitry Medvedev, since then new versions have been approved every two years, the last time in 2018.

In general, the document defines sixteen main directions of anti-corruption activities, which are divided into instructions, including: improving the system of prohibitions, restrictions and obligations that are established in different areas of activity, working with conflicts of interest and their prevention, confirming the reliability of information on income and expenses , legal regulation of liability for non-compliance with anti-corruption standards, application of administrative and criminal measures, protection of restricted information that was obtained in the course of the fight against corruption, and others.

In accordance with the roadmap, the government must develop proposals to improve reporting on the income of officials by October 15. In addition, it is necessary to study the issue of strengthening public control over the problem of corruption.

By December 10, the Prosecutor General's Office must prepare proposals for detailing the information on income that is published on the Internet. Also, according to the National Plan, until September 2023, it is necessary to analyze corruption risks in the case of gratuitous entry of civil servants into the leadership of national corporations. In addition, by 2023, law enforcement agencies should provide for bans on corrupt officials who escaped with fines in government agencies.

The plan also talks about the need to develop verification measures for digital assets and currencies.

The government will have to analyze the practice of limiting the receipt of gifts to combat corruption.

The President also instructed to work out the opening of the master's program "Anti-corruption activities". Separately, the document stipulates the need to approve a program for anti-corruption education of citizens and many other measures.

Experts are actively commenting on this document in the media and social networks.

RBC's interlocutor, lawyer Grigory Mashanov, drew attention to a curious feature of the Plan. The fact is that the document proposes to consider the possibility of applying anti-corruption standards to interim duties:

“It was a huge gap, and we came across it when the interim official has been working for years, but at the same time does not submit a declaration, continues to do business. In some regions, the prosecutor's office considered it a violation, in some not; there was no single standard, ”he said. At the same time, it is only about “considering the issue of expediency,” therefore it is premature to talk about expanding the standards, the lawyer added.

A novelty is the instruction to analyze corruption risks when making decisions on the allocation of subsidies from the budgets, Mashanov noted. The national plan will also prohibit directors of unitary enterprises from filling positions in case of convictions for corruption. According to the document, it will not be possible to accept for civil service persons without a criminal record, but with court fines for corruption.

The document obliges to analyze the measures of the authorities to protect persons who reported corruption to the prosecutor's office. Despite the fact that such instructions have already been in the previous plans, the law on the protection of applicants has not been adopted, Mashanov notes. “A huge number of scientific articles, studies were on this topic, a lot of publications in the media - the presence of a problem and its causes are obvious, but for some reason again only an instruction to consider the issue,” said the lawyer.

The plan provides for many monitoring reports, but all reporting on the implementation of points is unlikely to be public, Mashanov said. According to him, the document does not provide for mechanisms for public control: "The state is clearly not interested in this." In addition, according to the lawyer, the plan does not solve the problem of corruption in public procurement, nor does it contain requirements for greater transparency of declarations, for example, the mandatory publication of digital assets. “In general, there are many cosmetic proposals, but few systemic ones,” he concluded.

Analysts of the "Kremlin Madman" are surprised by the appearance of such a document:

“From year to year, the Russian government signs anti-corruption orders with one hand and requires detailed information on the income and property of civil servants, and with the other, hides the property of high-ranking civil servants and their family members in Rosreestr under the impersonal and therefore even more symbolic designation“ Russian Federation ”. Russians know about the fate of those who wish to strengthen public control over the problem of corruption on the example of Alexei Navalny, who is serving time in a colony.

The fight of the Russian state against corruption is similar to the fight of Nanai boys - there are many body movements, but the result depends solely on the whim of the one who portrays these boys..."

In addition, it becomes quite obvious that the fight against corruption in Russia has the "subtleties" of criminal cases, analysts continue:

“Corruption cases in the system arise when questions of a personal nature appear to the object of subsequent investigation. Corrupt officials are not visible to the system as long as they enjoy the support of higher echelons in the vertical of power. General rules "to remain in the shadows" (classified by Rosreestr) have long been established by political administrators. The corruption agenda "restrains" the elite from the possible strengthening of any of the political groups. For the first time, observers saw the power of corruption clean-ups when Dmitry Medvedev was excessively willing to return to the presidency. The detention of the former Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Ulyukaev, the head of the "open government" Abyzov, and the financial group of the Magomedov brothers close to Medvedev can be attributed to one series of events. The ex-prime minister was in a situation “beyond comprehension” (quote from the former prime minister). The detentions turned out to be an example for the entire political Russia of the power of the "anti-corruption system" (with the political will of the main actor).

The constant reminder by President Putin of expanding the anti-corruption agenda is a bad signal for the elites. Apparently, at the turn of the transition of power, some "active" political groups will face the overwhelming force of anti-corruption sweeps..."

Network analyst Anatoly Nesmiyan generally believes that there is no corruption in Russia, and that what exists should be called differently - rent:

“The state of gangsters and the fight against corruption are not even bees against honey. This is conceptually absurd. As long as those who rob the people and the country will catch themselves, until then it does not have the slightest practical significance. Actually, therefore, the enthusiasm around this event is also on duty, and the plan itself will be forgotten tomorrow. Before it's time to sign a new one.

The subtlety is that, generally speaking, there is no corruption in Russia. Corruption is a sign of a developed state. For our country, a position is a rental land, a feeding ground. The difference between these two phenomena is fundamental. Corruption is market relations. The official trades in his powers, the buyer buys them. Or he doesn't buy if the cost of authority is excessively high. In general, corruption is voluntary. Rent is a mandatory payment. It is obligatory due to the end-to-end tribute collection system. The sentry cannot but take a bribe because he must pay the planned amount to his immediate supervisor. He cannot help but lower the plan for bribing his subordinates, since he himself is obliged to bring a strictly agreed amount to his superiors. And so all these rental streams gather in deep rivers and turn into villas, Maybachs, houses in London and Florida. In the golden toilet bowls of the head of the region's traffic police in the end. And by definition, it is impossible to eliminate such an end-to-end system within the same system.

The rent system was not created under Putin, it is a classic feudal system of collecting tribute. But in today's Russia, it is codified and institutionalized at the conceptual level. Rental lands are a field of struggle, which means that only organized criminal communities can fight for them, they will eat singles. Therefore, the country is actually divided into the territory of collecting tribute of several large groups, which themselves are not engaged in collecting tribute, but provide cover for collectors vassals to them. The system is stable, since there is always a struggle in the peripheral areas of tribute collection, the victims of which become participants in information messages about the fight against corruption. The condition of the openness of the system is met, and the accumulated entropy is periodically removed from it.

In theory, such a system can exist indefinitely, since it is homeostasis. But the problem is that in its purely gangster performance (and the current Kremlin simply do not know anything else), it produces a resource at a much lower rate than it withdraws it. This means that rental land is being depleted, and the further - the faster. The problem can be solved by excluding some of the rent recipients from the system and creating a new balance sheet. But this means launching an internal “elite” not just a struggle, but a war of extermination. What, for obvious reasons, gangster clans are trying to avoid: in such a war you gain little, but you can lose everything. As a result, the free resource of the system has already ended, but even this did not lead to a reformatting of the elite space, and now tribute is being collected from those parts of the system that are responsible for its stability. What contributes to its accelerated destruction ... "