Kommersant: “Prosecutors to check Putin’s complaint”
Prosecutor's Office to investigate Volgograd city authorities.
Fifteen investigators from the Prosecutor General's Office have started reviewing business complaints about corruption in the distribution of land plots in Volgograd.
The complaints were voiced during a government meeting in the city chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week. He criticised the work of Mayor Roman Grebennikov, who replied that the business complaints were untrue and proposed investigating the matter. The mayor's opponents think he will be dismissed.
A special commission of the Prosecutor General's Office, led by Vyacheslav Kroshkin, the head of the department supervising compliance with economic legislation, arrived in Volgograd yesterday. A group of 15 investigators will check business complaints against the city administration and Mayor Roman Grebennikov.
On July 15, Vladimir Putin criticised the mayor's work in the construction sector. The prime minister said that not enough land was allotted for construction in the city. Only 19 auctions were held to allocate 1.4 hectares of land last year and only two auctions, for the same amount of land, in 2010.
Astrakhan, which has a population of about 500,000 people, is building as much a year as Volgograd, which has more than one million residents, he said.
Roman Sozarukov, the head of the Volgograd branch of the Delovaya Rossiya (Business Russia) organisation, told Putin that the allotment of land for private housing and other construction is completely corrupt in the city. The prime minister assured meeting participants that all reported allegations of corruption in some regions would be investigated and that the process would be monitored by the prosecutor general himself.
Investigators showed up in Volgograd five days later. Their inspection will last about two weeks.
Roman Grebennikov was elected Volgograd mayor in May 2007 upon nomination by the Communist Party. However, he abandoned the communists and joined the United Russia party in April 2008 and later became the head of the prime minister's reception office in the region.
The mayor failed to develop good working relations with the leadership of the local United Russia branch, who claimed Grebennikov's team was incompetent and inefficient. In October 2008 and July 2009, the business community wrote to the Prosecutor General's Office to complain about violations of land legislation by the mayor's team.
The Opora Rossii organisation of small and medium-sized businesses held a series of meetings and signed petitions against the mayor.
Delovaya Rossiya head Boris Titov proposed dismissing Grebennikov in 2009, but the federal leadership of United Russia and prosecutors said they were satisfied with the mayor's achievements.
According to the regional prosecutor's office, they exposed over 2,500 violations in Volgograd administrative practice and submitted proposals for amending 664 local legal acts that contradict legislation. As many as 159 officials were disciplined and 26 received administrative punishment.
Volgograd Vice-Mayor Igor Kulikov, who was responsible for the housing and utilities sector, was arrested on July 6 on suspicion of taking bribes while distributing federal allocations for overhauling residential blocks and resettling people from dilapidated housing.
Roman Grebennikov said the complaints against him were untrue and that the members of United Russia in Volgograd were fighting for his dismissal because their companies had not been given municipal contracts.
"I see Vladimir Putin's criticism as the encouragement of action to improve our city planning work," Grebennikov told Kommersant. "We have reformed management and cut the time necessary for preparing land for construction projects, and will give more active support to the construction industry. As for inspections, we are ready for them. There is no proof of these corruption accusations; they are merely an instrument of pressuring me."
Roman Sozarukov told this newspaper that he has a 500-page list of violations, but refused to show it.
"I will only hand it over to the investigators," he said.
Andrei Kuprikov, co-chairman of Delovaya Rossiya's Volgograd branch, said that as a result of the investigation the mayor would retire and also abandon the post at the prime minister's reception office.
"The Volgograd branch of United Russia has so far been flabby," he said. "Its opinion is unlikely to be taken as the ultimate truth when a team of investigators is sent to the region. Putin will not stand on ceremony prior to the elections. He cares about the electorate's support more than about the fate of a man who heads one of his pubic reception offices."
Alexander Vasilyev
