Russia Taking Steps to Combat Corruption
President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Presidential Council for Countering Corruption on Tuesday to discuss further measures to improve the national anti-corruption policy in Russia.
The Council for Countering Corruption was set up in accordance with the Presidential Executive Order of May 2008 to create a system to combat corruption in the country and address the causes that lead to it. The President is the chairman of this Council.
Putin said that in the first 9 months of 2015 alone more than 8,800 people were convicted on criminal charges of corruption. Disciplinary action was taken against almost 11,000 officials for violations of the anti-corruption standards.
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According to Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index 2015, Russia’s rank is 119 in a list of 168 countries. In other words, Russia is among the highly corrupt nations of the world.
“We also need to improve such anti-corruption mechanism as forfeiture to the state of property purchased using illegal or bad funds. This should include compliance with international legal standards in returning assets illegally siphoned off to other jurisdictions,” Putin suggested.
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He also said that an important issue is reimbursement for the damage caused by corruption. According to statistics, out of 15.5 billion rubles subject to collection under corruption cases, last year the Russian authorities managed to recover only 588 million rubles.
“You would agree that this is a very modest amount. We need to curb any attempt to offer bribes on behalf of commercial organisations to Russian or foreign officials when such attempts are made on the territory of other countries. Corresponding amendments have already been submitted to the State Duma. Of course, with this in mind, we need to improve our work and improve our cooperation with our partners abroad,” Putin said.
Photo courtesy: Kremlin
