Public procurement by officials: the habit of squandering money has not disappear

Alexander Dybin

In St. Petersburg, authorities will spend a billion on PR, nine on a concert hall

In the Northern capital, almost a billion rubles were found for advertising from bloggers and in the media in 2023. This follows from the draft resolution, which was discovered by journalists on the website of the city government. 980 million rubles will be given out in the form of a subsidy to the Petrocenter Journalists Association, which the authorities created last year. This structure will be engaged in the production of city and district newspapers, as well as "the creation and publication of posts on socially significant topics of the development of St. Petersburg in social media, the creation and publication of information on socially significant topics of the development of St. Petersburg in the federal media." The association should generate thousands of publications on social networks, as well as form a pool of bloggers and opinion leaders who will publish important information for the city.

The auction to determine the contractor for the renovation of the Music Hall building ended in a scandal. Repairs were planned back in 2021, but while the documents were being prepared, the contract price almost doubled. Initially, it was planned to spend 4.5 billion rubles on the project, and in December 2022, the city government announced an auction for 9.5 billion rubles. The contract was awarded to the company "PSB "Zhilstroy".

Another St. Petersburg purchase from the "couldn't afford to refuse" series is the purchase of an entire fleet. The SMOLNINSKOYE municipal institution, which provides transport services to the government of St. Petersburg, bought 60 Hyundai Sonata for 150 million and 21 Genesis for 137 million. Another city structure of Kolomyazhskoye JSC tried to purchase two Volkswagen Touareg 3 SUVs for 11 million rubles each. After the publication of information about this in the media, purchases were canceled, as explained by officials in connection with a "change in demand."

In Chelyabinsk, authorities did not grudge millions of rubles on holiday

In Chelyabinsk, almost at the end of a difficult 2022, a scandal broke out over the purchase of New Year's illumination. In autumn, the city received additional funds and 400 million rubles of them decided to spend on decorating the central street for the New Year. By the way, a light tunnel donated by a large industrial enterprise has been installed on Kirov pedestrian street for several years. But last year the authorities decided to buy a new one and move the old one to another area. The purchase coincided with the active phase of partial mobilization and the gathering of reservists who were being purchased ammunition and food and equipment. Then, in several regions of the country, proposals were made to abandon New Year's spending, sending money to support the mobilized. In Chelyabinsk, they only reduced the amount of the contract. 154 million rubles went to the company from St. Petersburg "Omega", which installed a light tunnel in the city center and other light structures.

At about the same time, a not-so-large-scale financial, but symptomatic scandal was developing in the region. The Regional Procurement Organization Center announced an auction for the purchase of French cognac and Remy Martin wine and Chateau Pey La Tour. The amount is 600 thousand rubles, but, nevertheless, officials on the eve of the New Year bought alcohol for 4.5 thousand rubles a bottle. After the auction was reported by journalists, the purchase was quickly curtailed.

A little earlier, the FKU "Center for Economic and Service Support of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Chelyabinsk Region" I tried to buy 10 kebab sets for 76,666 rubles. The documents noted that they were intended for the award fund. But after the publications about the purchase, the auction was canceled, and the press service of the police headquarters said that the kebab sets were ordered by mistake.

Couldn't give up on Apple

Last year, several regions managed to "snatch" products from the American company Apple, which announced its withdrawal from Russia after the start of its own.

So, according to the Public Procurement portal, SUE Municipal Systems of the Tver region ordered four iPad-9th generation for 251,960. In the materials of the electronic system, it is noted that the contract was executed on July 25, 2022.

The municipal autonomous theater and concert institution "Krasnodar Creative Association "Premiere"" also managed to buy an Apple iPad Pro tablet in 2021 for 128,000 rubles. Apparently, they were able to redeem the remnants that were still available to sellers.

I drew attention to the persistent interest in "apple" products and ONF. Veterans counted purchases of gadgets from a well-known company for more than a million rubles.

"Most of the customers are institutions directly related to government agencies. For example, the Reforestation Center of the Ministry of Forestry of the Irkutsk Region, which purchased two Apple Smart 2020 tablets at once for almost 300 thousand rubles", - said Valery Alekseyev, head of the Investigation Bureau of the Popular FrontIn addition, Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University purchased an Apple iPad Pro tablet for 235 thousand rubles.

In the autonomous institution "SERVICE" of the Sergievsky municipal district of the Samara region, they bought an Apple iPad Pro 2021 tablet for 187 thousand rubles. In the cultural center "CASCADE" of the administration of the Petrodvorets district of St. Petersburg, an Apple MacBook Pro laptop for 223 thousand rubles, a postgraduate education center The Health Department of the Lipetsk region – a laptop for 205 thousand rubles.

A rubber banana for a penal colony

This purchase would raise public questions even in fat years. In the summer of 2022, correctional colony No. 7 in Bashkortostan tried to buy a banana with rubber for riding on the water. Why the correctional institution needed this projectile, no one explained. But there were 130 thousand rubles to buy from the colony, although after the hype, the contract had to be abandoned.

According to the Bureau of Investigation of the Popular Front, 55 purchases were identified last year, which can be classified as "beyond their means". The total amount of contracts is 450 million rubles. Half of the bidding was canceled after the publicity. First of all, we are talking about cars worth from 4 million to 18 million rubles.

Moscow: 5 billion rubles on pallets

Moscow traditionally spends more than other regions, and there is more money in the capital. But even here there is something to pay attention to. So this year the main archive department of the city of Moscow made an attempt to buy plastic pallets for 5.4 billion rubles. According to the procurement materials, the winner had to establish the production of containers for storing documents. The contract was calculated until 2032 and during this time the archive intends to receive more than 600,000 pallets. However, the auction did not take place, the only application was found not to meet the requirements.

Another fresh purchase is from Perm. Here, the Ministry for the Regulation of the contract system in the field of procurement of the Perm Region has purchased services for the transportation of passengers by business class passenger cars. The contract price is 500 thousand rubles. Modestly, but the transportation should be carried out on request and at the end of the year the volume can be revised.

And in St. Petersburg they are already preparing for the new year. So the city center of advertising and festive decoration has already played two auctions for 2024. Almost 40 million will pay for the services of decorating St. Petersburg with light compositions on bridges and embankments for the holidays New Year 2024 and Christmas. And another 20 million will be paid for placing garlands on trees.