Tuesday, August 7, 2001
Yakovlev Decree Sets Sights on Corruption
By Vladimir Kovalyev
STAFF WRITER
Governor Vladimir Yakovlev has given his Security Department new authority
to root out corruption in City Hall, according to a decree signed last
month.
According to the decree, which Yakovlev signed on July 2, the Security
Department is now "obliged to provide full and official investigations about
the facts of abuses of power committed by [City Hall] officials."
The decree also charges the security department with "the elaboration of
administrative, legal and preventative measures to fight abuse of power
among authorities."
The decree has some observers believing that Yakovlev is now serious about
rooting out any corruption that may exist within his administration.
However, other analysts argue that the new powers merely represent an effort
to deflect law enforcement bodies such as the City Prosecutors Office, the
Federal Security Service and the police, which have been showing increased
interest in City Hall lately.
According to the decree, only members of the administration and the City
Prosecutors Office can lodge corruption complaints with the head of the
Security Department, Viktor Sudakov.
Nonetheless, some lawmakers applauded the new decree.
"The time to check on who works at City Hall and to find out if there are
people with criminal records came long ago," said Legislative Assembly
deputy Leonid Romankov in an interview last week.
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. People have been talking about
it for some time now," he said.
The administration has been the target of numerous corruption allegations,
most recently against Vice Governor Valery Malyshev, head of the municipal
Sports, Transport and Communications Committee. Malyshev, who will be on
vacation until September and who has refused to comment on the allegations
to The St. Petersburg Times, has been officially charged with taking bribes.
Last month, the City Prosecutors Office announced that it was opening an
investigation of top officials in the municipal Transportation Committee.
Prosecutors suspect that 9 million rubles ($300,000) may have been
misappropriated. City Prosecutor Ivan Sydoruk has already asked Yakovlev to
take disciplinary measures against the committees chairman, Alexei Chumak.
Sudakov - who was appointed to his post last October - recently ordered
checks on the allegations against Malyshev. His department also looked into
the Transportation Committee case.
"We checked it and found that this was not even Chumak who signed the
financial documents [which are being investigated by the City Prosecutors
Office]," Sudakov commented in an interview last week.
Alexander Shchelkanov, an independent Legislative Assembly lawmaker, said
the security department was granted its new mandate in order to forestall
the Prosecutors Offices moves against City Hall and to help Yakovlev cover
himself.
"I dont expect any coordination between City Hall and the Prosecutors
Office, but rather a screening effect, provided by the Security Department,"
Shchelkanov said on Monday.
"They would collect information for the governor so he would have time to
clean up in case it looks like something is going to happen," he said.
But Alexander Afanasyev, the governors spokesperson said that the decree is
"just a routine change of City Hall structure."
"They are not going to collect any files on City Hall officials. It is the
polices business to investigate crime. This department, which existed
before, was just restructured to operate under a different persons
responsibility," Afanasyev said on Monday.
Sudakov said that the departments primary goals at present are to combat
terrorism in the city and to provide any information requested by the City
Prosecutors Office if a City Hall official is charged with a crime. But he
emphasized that it will not undertake investigations on its own.
"We are not going to chase any officials," Sudakov said. "We are not going
to do anything by our own initiative, but only after a prosecutors office
inquiry."
The City Prosecutors Office said it had had no dealings with the department
recently.
"At this moment we have no [criminal] cases open against City Hall
authorities, so no inquiries have been sent to that structure recently,"
said Yelena Antonova, the St. Petersburg prosecutors office spokesperson,
in a telephone interview on Friday.
"As for that structure, it was set up not very long ago and has not been of
any use for us [yet]," she said.
