PRESS: Russian Chief Auditor says appalled by treasury frauds

MOSCOW, Apr 19 (PRIME) -- The amount of squandered budget money exceeds planned revenue from 2015 and 2016 privatization and the state coffers’ losses from the oil price decline, news daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Tuesday, citing Director of the Audit Chamber Tatiana Golikova, who added that she is not sure that she will weather this job for long.

“There is much grief in my current job,” Golikova said at an open lecture at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, the news daily reported. “I frequently think about how long I will hold out on this job.”

Violations of state funds investment rules -- delays in the launch of facilities ordered by the government and unjustified construction costs increases, along with unpaid penalties and unfinished construction works that were fully financed, is the sore spot of the budget, Golikova said.

She estimated the investment embezzlements at 516.5 billion rubles, the unpaid penalty debt at 1.9 trillion rubles and non-finished building one at 3.3 trillion rubles in 2015.

According to Golikova, incomplete road and runway building led in the non-finished building category with the particularly astonishing amount of embezzlements.

There are also 78.7 billion rubles worth of subsidies to state corporations. As a rule, the funds remain unspent on accounts of corporations with commercial banks, and corporations benefit from deposit interests, Golikova said.

But Alor Broker analyst Kirill Yakovenko said that the Audit Chamber sees lots of law violations but rarely initiates criminal cases. Another problem is that misappropriation of state funds has become normal from the point of view of both common people and state officials.

(68.2724 rubles – U.S. $1)

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