Interview with the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliyev by Mikhail Falaleyev: "Cleaning the Uniform. Rashid Nurgaliyev: There Will Be No More Corrupt Officials"

 

The MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) leadership has proposed new anticorruption measures. Any struggle, officials in the department believe, will prove fruitless if top officials and bribe-taking insiders are left unpunished.

 

People will now be accepted for service in the police only when senior colleagues stand surety for them. MVD personnel agencies are compiling lists of police officers who were denied entry into the service --for drug abuse, drunkenness, links with the criminal world. Similar "blacklists" are also being compiled for thieving officials so they never again return to (a position of) power.

 

Of course, the law professes to declare equal responsibility for all. But in practice... Furthermore, the sensitive and even painful subject of the inequality before the law of a "major state figure" and a "petty clerk" was veiled in silence for a long time. Is this not why many Russians are extremely skeptical about statements from lofty platforms about all kinds of endeavors to counter manifestations of corruption?

 

In an exclusive interview for Rossiyskaya Gazeta Russian Federation Minister of Internal Affairs Rashid Nurgaliyev talks about how the police department intends to radically change the situation. Arrests of people immune from jurisdiction.

 

(Falaleyev) Rashid Gumarovich, a resolute alleged fight against corruption has been declared many times. And it has always turned into a short-term campaign. There would be two or three show trials, and then everything would go back to how it always was. Where is the guarantee that the same will not happen this time too?

 

(Nurgaliyev) For the first time in recent decades an attempt has been made to systematize the fight against this evil. The National Plan for Countering Corruption has been created. On the instructions of the president of Russia the formulation of a corresponding MVD plan for 2008-2010 has also been completed.

 

(Falaleyev) What is the essence of these plans?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Without going into the operational and other technical details, I would say that the main element in the document is ensuring the inevitability of punishment for all corrupt officials, irrespective of their identity, rank, and position. This is a guarantee against its becoming a short-term campaign.

 

(Falaleyev) Are there any results already, high-profile investigations and arrests of "big fish"?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Yes there are. Increasingly frequently criminal proceedings for crimes of corruption have started to be initiated against high-ranking officials who would previously have been beyond the reach of justice. For example, not so long ago criminal proceedings were instituted in two cases against representatives of the leadership of the Krasnodar Kray (Region) Administration and certain federal ministries and departments. These people had illegally acquired shares in enterprises in the kray's energy complex. Similar criminal schemes have been uncovered in Rostov Oblast and Stavropol Kray.

 

There are also other examples. In March criminal proceedings were instituted against leading Yekaterinburg Administration officials. They are suspected of taking bribes and embezzling budget funds to the tune of more than 39 million rubles. Criminal charges for crimes of corruption are also being brought against a group of Orel Oblast Administration officials.

 

The biggest, so to speak, corrupt official against whom criminal proceedings have been initiated is the leader of the Lipetsk Oblast Forestry Administration. Biggest not in terms of scale but in terms of appetite. To put it mildly, he exceeded his powers when he recategorized forestry land as "housing development land." The resulting damage totaled 12.7 billion rubles.

 

(Falaleyev) Which high-ranking officials have been taken to court?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Officials from our Economic Security Department uncovered colossal thefts of Rostekhnadzor (Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Oversight) property to the tune of more than 50 million rubles in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Criminal proceedings were instituted and an operation was conducted. It transpired that officials --Rostekhnadzor Administration for Tyumen Oblast Deputy Chief Menshikov and some of his colleagues -- had been engaged in machinations. In the course of the investigation new evidence surfaced of bribes and even the theft of mineral license holders' financial resources -- to the tune of more than 19 million rubles. The court sentenced Menshikov and his partners in crime to long terms of imprisonment -- of between 7.5 and 15 years.

 

A group of Tver city Duma deputies headed by its chairman was convicted of taking bribes on a large scale. The cleanliness of the regime.

 

(Falaleyev) Corruption becomes possible and is frequently even encouraged by graft on the part of police officers themselves. How great is the scale of this problem?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Unfortunately the law enforcement agencies, which are called upon to defend society against corruption, have themselves turned out to be infected by this contagion. Such phenomena as the ubiquitous -- but not unrewarded -- provision of security for commercial structures by police officers or, to put it in simpler terms "protection rackets," have now become commonplace. Police officers participate actively in disputes between businesses and provide strong-arm support for corporate raiders. Sometimes, in exchange for a corresponding reward, a "required" criminal-procedural decision is adopted or audits are conducted or terminated in the interests of commercial structures or individuals. All this exists. But the depth of the contamination, in my view, is no more and no less than in the whole of society -- the transition-period society in which we live and work.

 

(Falaleyev) The most frequent complaints are against police officers who are checking out businessmen.

 

(Nurgaliyev) As you know, in order to protect small business against bureaucracy and kickbacks, the head of state, at the March meeting of the State Council Presidium in Tobolsk, proposed a complete ban on supervisory organizations having access to small businesses without official permission from state authorities. A draft law to this effect has had its first reading in the State Duma.

 

In order to eliminate abuses by police officers in this sphere we previously adopted measures to regularize checks and audits of commercial structures' financial, economic, business, and commercial activity. A departmental order confirmed detailed instructions that precisely regulate such work. Measures have been taken to rule out the possibility of checks being conducted by officials whose professional duties do not include the uncovering of such violations and crimes.

 

(Falaleyev) How many corrupt officials have you uncovered in your ranks?

 

(Nurgaliyev) In the first half of the year the number of officials facing criminal charges for corruption declined by more than one fourth - to 1,225.

 

In June last year we approved the Concept for Safeguarding the Internal Security of Russian Federation Internal Affairs and Federal Migration Service Organs. The main emphasis is on preventing crimes in the police environment. Checks of the state of discipline and compliance with legality in subunits have become more regular, and the response to violations that are uncovered, including minor violations, has become more scrupulous. For example, this year the number of officials who have faced disciplinary proceedings for various misdemeanors has increased by almost one third. Standing surety for police officers.

 

(Falaleyev) Does this mean that you have started to punish people more frequently and toughly?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Making punishment tougher is no panacea. Provision has been made for systemic measures to prevent and counter corruption encompassing every stage in a staffer's official's career -- from when he joins the service until he is discharged on retirement. Requirements for individual educational work to be conducted with every staffer have been incorporated in the professional obligations of all leaders.

 

As I have already said, a skillful combination of educational measures and the intensification of supervision of subordinates' conduct in service and everyday life, and the timely resolution of all issues relating to their social protection, will ultimately have a greater effect than reliance on tough punitive measures alone.

 

Full-scale staffs for the organization of educational word have already been reinstated in internal affairs agencies.

 

(Falaleyev) How in practice will it be possible to monitor police officers' conduct?

 

(Nurgaliyev) The formulation of an anticorruption standard of conduct as the principal component of the Code of Professional Ethics of Internal Affairs Agency Officials, which it is planned to approve in December, is nearing completion in the MVD.

 

Work is being done to introduce the institution of standing surety (poruchitselstvo) for candidates when joining internal affairs agencies, enrolling with departmental educational establishments, or being appointed to higher leadership posts.

 

In the course of next year the Ministry plans to create a card index of individuals who have been refused admission to the service or to training for negative reasons. For example, for drug abuse, links in the criminal community, and so forth. In this away an additional check will be made of all candidates entering service with the police.

 

This card index will become part of the integrated interdepartmental database on issues relating to the countering of corruption that is being created.

 

In addition, public organizations and the mass media must monitor the police. This is why we are expanding links with institutions of civil society and improving the informational openness of internal affairs agencies. Bribe-taker on the official payroll.

 

(Falaleyev) How many crimes of corruption has it been possible to uncover? Has the number increased?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Between January and August our subunits uncovered 24,027 crimes against the state authorities and the interests of civil service and local government bodies.

 

This is 15 percent more than last year, and includes a 6.8 percent increase in instances of bribe taking. Criminal cases relating to 15,173 crimes have been sent to court. The extent of the damage caused totals more than 783.8 million rubles. Property has been distrained and items relating to criminal activity confiscated to the tune of 847.1 million rubles.

 

(Falaleyev) Reports of thousands of criminal cases against corrupt officials do not impress people when they have to give bribes for the simplest state services at virtually every turn.

 

(Nurgaliyev) If the quantitative figures might be deemed satisfactory, in qualitative terms they clearly do not correspond to either the scale of the corruption or to the law enforcement agencies' possibilities. And the main shortcoming here is a desire to secure high performance figures by interdicting insignificant crimes of corruption that do not have a significant impact on the overall level.

 

Thus, crimes on a large scale account for slightly more than 3.5 percent of the crimes uncovered in the first 8 months of the year. Approximately the same proportion has persisted throughout all recent years.

 

(Falaleyev) That is, it is mainly small-scale bribe takers that get caught?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Of the 10,200 instances of bribe taking uncovered this year only 193 had been on a large-scale. That is, less than 2 percent. Not a single case of receiving bribes on a large scale was recorded in 36 components of the Russian Federation, and no such instances committed in the context of organized groups and criminal communities were recorded in 77 regions. But this does not mean that such crimes are not being committed there.

 

(Falaleyev) Why are such things happening?

 

(Nurgaliyev) The final results of the fight against corruption leave something to be desired. Even extortionists who have been caught have often managed to evade responsibility. A significant number of criminal cases are terminated during the investigation phase. Nor does the fact that a case has been sent to court mean that the tainted official will receive the just punishment that he deserves.

 

According to court statistics, across the country as a whole only one bribe taker in 10 is sentenced to a custodial sentence. The rest get off with a lighter punishment, which clearly does not help to eradicate corruption but, on the contrary, spawns an illusion of impunity.

 

There are many reasons for this -- ranging from everyday unprofessionalism on the part of officers when documenting the actions of corrupt officials to the continuing existence of telephone law (whereby officials would tell judges what verdicts to return) and unjustified leniency on the part of individual judges.

 

This is why in our plan presented to the president we attach paramount importance to the principle of the inevitability of punishment -- a principle that nobody has abrogated.

 

(Falaleyev) But bribe takers have sometimes not only avoided deserved imprisonment but also returned to their leadership post.

 

(Nurgaliyev) In order to prevent corruption I regard it as important to mobilize more fully the potential of the Register of Disqualified Individuals. It contains data on officials and businessmen who are prohibited in accordance with a court order from holding leadership posts for having committed crimes of corruption.

 

(Falaleyev) Who compiles this Register? Can an ordinary person make use of it?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Since April last year it has been put together by the MVD Main Information and Analysis Center on the basis of information received from courts. Currently the Register contains more than 5,300 names. People who have committed crimes of corruption and been sentenced can be found in it. But these are not necessarily people sentenced to a custodial term. They may also have received a conditional sentence. The main thing it that, in accordance with a court order, they cannot hold leadership posts. It is very important for officials from state institutions and various organizations and enterprises to check with this Register when giving anybody a job.

 

This information can be obtained at the request of any citizen or corporate entity. Its utilization will make it possible to significantly restrict the chances of former officials convicted of corruption obtaining a prestigious job or participating in elections to organs of state power or local government. One half of criminal earnings goes to officials.

 

(Falaleyev) Why has this subject -- fighting corruption -- arisen precisely now? Did there used to be less of it? Or was there not the political will to combat it?

 

(Nurgaliyev) As the head of state noted in one of his speeches, corruption has turned into a threat to Russia's national security.

 

Indubitably previous attempts were also made to curb corruption and reduce it to at least a socially acceptable level. But in an economically weak and politically unstable state like the Russian Federation was at the end of the last century, such efforts were bound to be doomed to fail.

 

And only now, when all the necessary political and socioeconomic preconditions have been created in Russia, when negative attitudes toward corruption have reached a critical mass in society, has the decision been made to launch a large-scale and uncompromising struggle against this phenomenon. With the adoption of the National Corruption Plan a real war has in effect been declared simultaneously in all directions -- legislative, administrative, and social-educational.

 

(Falaleyev) But to this day legislators are crossing swords over the actual definition of the concept of "corruption." Has the MVD specified what specific threat we are talking about?

 

(Nurgaliyev) Today corruption is a well-oiled system for redistributing the illicit revenues of organized crime in order to suborn officials in organs of power. The forms are pretty diverse -- from the direct payment of money and the opening of personal accounts in foreign banks to the funding of children's education in prestigious colleges.

 

There is also corrupt lobbying, protectionism, and patronage. This includes the granting of benefits and advantages, particularly access to budget funds and state property, the provision of internal information, the exertion of pressure on rivals through auditing and oversight agencies, and, on the other hand, protection of one's own businesses from such checks. These are only a few manifestations of the most typical corrupt relationships.

 

A particular danger is posed by the establishment of corrupt relations between officials and organized crime, which pervert the fundamental mechanisms for regulating the economy and make it possible to redistribute property by illegal means with impunity. Including through the use of so-called corporate raider grabs of businesses. In other words, they grab control of competition-- the very foundation of a market economy. Organized criminal formations spend approaching half of their criminal revenues on suborning officials.

 

The bottom line

 

(Falaleyev) What, so to speak, is the size of the Russian market in corrupt services?

 

(Nurgaliyev) As studies have shown, in some regions approximately two thirds of businessmen are involved in corrupt relationships. Because of its highly latent nature, the true scale of corruption cannot be determined precisely. Thus, according to information from the Parliamentary Commission for Combating Corruption, the total damage caused to the Russian economy by this phenomenon is close to 40 billion rubles a year. But according to some foreign expert assessments, it is in excess of 20 billion US dollars. Polls of the population demonstrate that more than 70 percent of Russians have encountered extortion in one form or another.

 

Corruption in its various manifestations has penetrated all spheres and has in fact become an inseparable part of everyday life, both at the day-to-day level and in the economy. According to studies by a number of sociological centers, the majority of Russians see corruption not as a criminal phenomenon but as a normal condition of life.

 

(Falaleyev) The MVD plan is calculated to run through 2010. Does that mean that we will have put an end to corruption within 2 years?

 

(Nurgaliyev) We have compiled a working document for a certain phase. We will do what we have planned -- we will go further on the basis of the realities that develop. We are not idealists and understand very well that an unprecedented amount of work will need to be done. And we are not dreaming of obtaining some tangible effect within a year or two. Restoring societal relations to health is a very protracted process and could last for decades. But I have no doubt that certain positive shifts will start to happen in the near future. How soon this will be depends directly on how active we are and on whether people believe the sincerity of our intentions to really combat corruption and join in the process of implementing the measures that have been mapped out. Because without the support of the people all of our activity could end in complete failure, turning into yet another fruitless high-profile campaign.

 

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Source: "Rossiyskaya Gazeta"