#11
Role of Comptroller's Office Examined
Vremya MN
28 November 2001
[translation for personal use only]
Article by Valeriy Vyzhutovich: "Passing Game"
Never before has Sergey Stepashin been so accessible to the press and so eager to talk. He never seems to leave the television screen these days. He does not refuse to grant interviews to printed publications, and happily answers any and all questions.
The activity with which the Chief Comptroller talks to the press today does not correspond well with the generally accepted standards of behavior of high level officialdom. Only public politicians act this way.
Obviously, the reasons for the increased demand for Sergey Vadimovich are concealed not in the magnetic properties of his personality. As he himself explained, the fact is that "questions which concern bringing about order are finally in demand."
The nature of this sudden demand is quite simple, and contains no great riddles. The President has decided to turn the Comptroller's Office into a mighty department capable of keeping the government, all institutions of the executive branch, as well as major business corporations with predominant share of state capital, under control.
It is strange that Putin did not think of this sooner. The Comptroller's Office, with its mighty control potential, independence from the government and the Prime Minister (and formally also from the President), and access to the power structures and the Prosecutor's Office, is the ideal arena for creating a modern day "oprichnina" [special administrative elite under Tsar Ivan the Terrible]. Of course, it does not necessarily have to sniff out traitors, but it most certainly will keep the federal and regional leaders in line by conducting regular audits (in essence--through compromising material, because no one is without sin).
All the indications of such an "oprichnina," which is being born before our very eyes, are already becoming outlined. The Comptroller's Office has concluded agreements on cooperation with the FSB [Federal Security Service], MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs], FAPSI [Federal Government Communications and Information Agency], MNS [Ministry of Taxes and Fees], the tax police, and the General Prosecutor's Office. As Stepashin announced, preliminary agreement on close contacts has also been reached with Viktor Zubkov's Main Financial Intelligence.
But that is not all. And it is also not the main thing. The impending incursion of the Comptroller's Office into spheres which up until now have been considered the prerogative of the government appears much more serious. The Comptroller's Office intends to take under its control the budget, foreign debts, analysis and appraisal of financial risks, and export tariffs on energy resources. Moreover, privatization of strategic objects will become impossible without its approval.
These unprecedented and vast powers and authorities are being given to the Comptroller's Office to solve new problems. Evidently, one of them is to slap the hands of government lobbyists, and to at least somehow bring their varied interests to a common state denominator. At the same time, Stepashin himself is becoming a super influential figure. And the Comptroller's Office is turning into a political department. And it soars above the entire executive vertical chain of command. That is why Stepashin's statement does not appear so bold: "The Comptroller's Office is changing over to a stricter scheme of work with the government." On the contrary, it is Kasyanov's response to the ambitions of the Comptroller's Office that appears brave: "The business of the Comptroller's Office is to balance debits and credits, while political conclusions are the business of the government and the President."
The Prime Minister was mortally insulted. And not only by the encroachment on his powers and authorities in the economic sphere. Stepashin has taken a swipe at the most sacred of sacred cows--the government cadres. The audits in the MPS [Ministry of Railways] which grew into the "Aksenenko case," the handing over of materials on a number of other ministries to the General Prosecutor's Office--if this is "tune-up of the government," then it is certainly not the one Kasyanov had in mind. Aside from that, he believes (and he stated this in a close circle of associates) that the sins of the Minister of Railways are not a matter for a criminal case. They are merely economic routine.
Kasyanov is entirely correct. If the mechanism of siphoning off funds from the MPS to private shippers has up until now not evoked the objections of the authorities--furthermore, it was performed on a lawful basis--how can we accuse the Minister of exceeding his official duties? He will leave, but the mechanism which produced the corruption will continue to exist. Except that now another person will stand at the head of the MPS. One who is closer to the new Kremlin command.
From this, it follows that the mass audits in the ministries and departments and the criminal cases against their leaders are certainly no triumph of legality. After all, the question is not that one minister who has been sent off to retirement or to a plank bed will be replaced by another. The question centers around legitimized order, in which a public official always "free wheels" money, contracts, benefits, and objects of real estate. From the supreme rulers, this order requires only one thing--arrangement of "his own" people wherever there is any hint of big profits.
And it appears that now the Comptroller's Office has also been called to the service of this order.
A reasonable question: Why is it that the General Prosecutor's Office is not acting as the initiator of the criminal cases here? Why is it that Stepashin is "passing off" to Ustinov, who then "takes a shot on goal," but often gets confused and misses?
I will risk presuming that this "pass game" has been invented exclusively for those who are watching it. For the broad circle of fans, who are the Russian citizens. The Prosecutor's Office has been too greatly compromised in the eyes of society for anyone to believe that it is disengaged from the "case" of that same Aksenenko, or someone else who is yet to come. After all, up until now, the Comptroller's Office has remained in the shadows. It is still above suspicion. And when Stepashin swears: "We have no prejudicial involvement. We have not received any special orders," one wants to believe him.
It was in approximately this same way that the Soviet party heads used the Committee on People's Control (CPC). In the struggle against those who misappropriated socialist property, the violators of state discipline and "eyewash" specialists of the CPC sometimes also set their sights on very big leaders. "The people's eye, the watchful eye" aimed at whomever it was ordered to. Sometimes it would happen that the materials were even handed over to the Prosecutor's Office.
Excuse me, but where were these materials taken from? At times, was it not from that very same Prosecutor's Office? No, perhaps it was rather from the KGB [Committee on State Security], where secret files on ministers and their deputies could still be kept.
At that time, the victims of apparatus intrigues often flew out of their positions in specifically this manner--having first been called on the carpet by Comrade Shkolnikov. The offices of the CPC--from which Pravda published its reports, singing the praises of yet another clear example of people's democracy--engaged in laundering of compromising material, obtained by "eavesdropping," "outside surveillance," and other "active measures."
Are we not seeing a similar passing game on the new state playing field today?
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