The Prosecutor General's Office convicted a garbage state company of overspending on salaries

The Prosecutor General's Office during a scheduled inspection of the work of the Russian Environmental Operator (REO) and its founder, the Ministry of Natural Resources for 2019-2020, "revealed numerous violations of federal legislation." This follows from the letter of the First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman, which he sent on January 27 to the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov.

RBC has a copy of the letter. Representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Russian environmental operator confirmed its authenticity. RBC sent a request to the Prosecutor General's Office.

What violations were revealed by the Prosecutor General's Office

REO was created in January 2019 by order of President Vladimir Putin in the status of a public law company to oversee the garbage reform, which started in Russia at that very moment. Its goal is to create a full-cycle economy with an increase in the share of waste processing and a decrease in the share of waste disposal. In each region, territorial schemes for the collection, processing and disposal of garbage should appear and be approved, as well as regional operators should be selected.

The first general director of the company was Denis Butsaev, who was previously the deputy chairman of the Moscow region government. In November 2019, he resigned, but returned to the same post a year later - on November 20, 2020. From January to October 2020, the position of the head of the company was held by Ilya Gudkov.

The Prosecutor General's Office discovered an almost two-fold excess of expenditures on salaries of the REO in 2019, to which the Ministry of Natural Resources agreed. 146.6 million rubles were allocated for salaries. instead of the agreed RUB 79.45 million. “By using funds earmarked for other targeted expenditure items,” Buksman writes. The total tranche from the budget as a property contribution to the capital of the operator amounted to 220 million rubles. According to a RBC source close to REO, the budget for the entire work of the company for this year was less than 500 million rubles. "At the same time, the ministry (Ministry of Natural Resources. - RBC) for the entire period of activity of the Russian environmental operator has never carried out checks and audits of the spending of federal budget funds," Buksman points out.

According to the letter, the REO also carried out “illegal” payments of quarterly bonuses to employees for a total of RUB 76.7 million. The decision to pay these bonuses for the second and third quarters of 2019 was made in October of the same year "in the absence of savings and earned funds." But in fact, they were paid in the first half of 2020 at the expense of the federal budget. In July 2019, a list of salaries, bonuses and premiums for the management of the REO appeared on Telegram channels, according to which the total income of the head of the company was supposed to be 2.66 million rubles. per month. “My salary is about 950 thousand [rubles], in my opinion, including bonuses. The official salary is currently 510 thousand [rubles], further allowances, "Butsaev said in response to this in an interview with RBC in November 2019.

In addition, the Prosecutor General's Office concluded that the company's development strategy for five years has not yet been adopted, which is designed to determine targets and expected performance results. "The Ministry of Natural Resources and the company are not taking the necessary measures to form an integrated system for the management of municipal solid waste (MSW), to prevent their harmful effects on the environment, coordination of federal and regional executive bodies, local governments is not carried out," the letter says. In particular, the REO did not organize monthly monitoring of the achievement in the regions of the indicators of the federal project "Integrated system for the management of solid municipal waste", and the reports sent to the ministry "often contain incomplete, inaccurate and not documented information".

Moreover, in the course of the audit, “the ministry uncovered the illegal transfer of powers attributed to the competence of federal executive authorities to the Russian environmental operator,” Buksman writes. So, by order of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Butsaev was appointed head of the implementation of the project "Integrated system for the management of MSW", which "contradicts" the passport of the national project "Ecology" - such a duty should be assigned to the deputy minister.

The Ministry of Natural Resources has been the founder and main manager of the federal budget funds transferred to the REO as a property contribution since the company was founded. From May 2019 to November 2020, the ministry was headed by Dmitry Kobylkin. After his resignation, Alexander Kozlov was appointed the new minister.

How violations should be corrected

The Prosecutor General's Office came to the conclusion that the Ministry of Natural Resources is “self-eliminating” from the legal and financial support of the REO for state tasks on the formation of an integrated system for handling MSW. Buksman instructed to take "concrete measures" to eliminate the violations of the law and their causes.

The Ministry and the REO must ensure the "proper" implementation of tasks to improve the environmental situation in Russia and the formation of an integrated waste management system. The Ministry of Natural Resources was instructed to "take control" of the activities of the REO, including the spending of federal budget funds, and to accelerate the approval of the development strategy and "objective reporting" on the company's activities.

Among the instructions of the Deputy Prosecutor General is the solution of the issue of bringing to disciplinary responsibility of officials "guilty of violations of the law." "As a disciplinary sanction according to the general rules of the Labor Code (Art. 192), it is assumed: reprimand, reprimand or dismissal on appropriate grounds," notes Natalya Belyaeva, General Director of Delphi Law Firm, Deputy Head of the Committee for Waste Processing and Recycled Resources of Business Russia ". The Law "On the State Civil Service" additionally provides for such a type of disciplinary punishment as a warning about incomplete official compliance, she adds.

According to Belyaeva, the order of the Prosecutor General's Office does not imply any drastic conclusions, material penalties or criminal liability for the guilty officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources and REO. She believes that the current head of the company Denis Butsaev, despite being accused of excessive payments and other violations, is not threatened with dismissal. Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, who heads the REO Supervisory Board, instructed the Ministry of Natural Resources and the company to develop and approve a plan to eliminate the violations identified, indicating specific deadlines and responsible persons, her representative Marta Galicheva told RBC. “Based on the results of the service check, in particular, the penalty for employees will be determined. It is too early to make assumptions and conclusions, ”added the press secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources Marina Evseeva.

What measures will the Ministry of Natural Resources and the REO take

Yevseeva told RBC that the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Alexander Kozlov, from February 12, organized an official check of officials responsible for creating a strategy for the operation of the REO and the distribution of powers under the federal project "Integrated Waste Management System" for possible violations of the law. It will last a month, and its results will be reported to the Prosecutor General's Office.

According to the representative of the REO, the company also analyzed the letter of the Prosecutor General's Office and developed a plan of specific measures to eliminate the comments. “This plan is approved by the General Director [Denis Butsaev] and will be submitted for joint consideration with the participation of representatives of the General Prosecutor's Office. On a number of points, official checks of officials have been initiated within the company, ”he added.

He points out that the beginning of the garbage reform was associated with many difficulties, including problems with its implementation in individual municipalities and regions, complex and lengthy bureaucratic procedures, the lack of legal regulation, as well as contradictions in solving key issues of the industry development on the part of the participants. process. “Estimates for the most primitive, vital expenses were coordinated for months. Then there was a change of the general director, and then a change of government. The process of forming a new supervisory board and a pandemic has begun, ”adds a source close to the REO.

The interlocutor of RBC claims that due to the lack of working mechanisms in 2019-2020, it was impossible to implement measures to support the industry. Abramchenko also admitted this. “Now, according to regulatory documents, REO can invest in waste processing companies, whose authorized capital does not exceed 10 thousand rubles. When you start assessing risks, you understand that you cannot enter the capital of such an organization with budget funds. Therefore, colleagues [from REO] have not invested a ruble in such enterprises, ”she said in an interview with RBC in September 2020.

In 2020, the situation has changed, according to a source close to the REO: regional operators received real support (they were allocated about 9 billion rubles from the budget to cover cash gaps), infrastructure began to be built and work began on a complete revision of existing measures to support the industry from outside REO, says the interlocutor of RBC. At the end of 2020, the government decided to expand support measures for garbage disposal projects.

Source: https://www.rbc.ru/