The bill on the control of expenses and loans of school directors, heads of kindergartens and head doctors of hospitals is a synchronization of legislation, in reality this category is not “super-corruption”, while the state will have one more leverage to make directors completely politically loyal. This was told to The Insider by the director of Transparency International – Russia Ilya Shumanov and the Alliance of Teachers trade union.
The Teachers' Alliance told The Insider that the bill is an additional mechanism to selectively prosecute executives for corruption. In the non-public part of the declaration, they will be required to report on expenses, loans, installments and report the same information about spouses and minor children.
“There will be no instruments of public control (no access to the full declaration), and the state will use this as another lever to keep the directors completely politically loyal.”
Shumanov, in turn, said that we are talking about the synchronization of legislation, because as such the concept of “official” is not in Russian legislation, there are only different subtypes and groups holding public positions – deputies, employees of state corporations, employees of budget funds. Heads of state institutions (chief doctors and school directors) have a special status: they are not civil servants, but in fact they perform functions related to state and municipal administration. The reform of anti-corruption legislation related to the synchronization of statuses has been going on for quite a long time, Shumanov notes.
“In reality, directors of schools, state institutions and state hospitals are not super-corrupt. Of course, they have the right to make decisions, they have a latitude of administrative discretion, they manage budgetary funds, and they often become objects of investigation by the security forces. But de facto, from the point of view of their political status, they are quite defenseless, the security forces often “earn sticks” on them. At the same time, school directors are often involved in the formation of election commissions, and they, like hospital directors, fall into the category of political nomenclature.”
Maintaining the level of their loyalty, according to Shumanov, depends on how they are subject to the same requirements as other officials and deputies. At the same time, directors of schools and hospitals have already declared their income, now we are talking about expenses, he recalls. However, this is rather formal, since declaring expenses implies mentioning how much they spent if the purchase cost exceeds three years of gross earnings.
Not all expenses need to be included in the report, but only large ones: the purchase of an apartment, an expensive car, and so on. For directors of schools and hospitals, this is rather an exception to the rule, Shumanov believes. However, according to him, there are elite schools in the center of Moscow, where the line is built, and specialized state hospitals, where people come even from abroad. Therefore, everything will depend on the specific institution, the level of income of the head of the institution, the investigator emphasizes.
Earlier, RBC reported that the authorities decided to tighten control over the incomes of officials, heads of budgetary institutions and state corporations: for the first time, directors of schools, heads of kindergartens and chief doctors of hospitals and clinics will be required to declare personal expenses. They will be required to report on loans taken and payments on them, and heads of state institutions will be required to declare expenses. In addition, the Ministry of Labor wants school directors and chief doctors to report on the expenses of spouses and minor children. Currently, they are only required to report income, property, and liabilities of a property nature. The innovation will potentially affect up to 206.6 thousand Russians.