Big Money Missing from Social Insurance Fund
// “Children's money” missing from Zurabov's agency
Another scandal in agencies under Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov came to light yesterday when it became known that the Russian Interior Ministry Investigative Committee is looking into a criminal case of misappropriation of money allocated to the Social Insurance Fund under a federal program for summer therapeutic recreation for children. Yesterday the committee made public accusations executives of the Pension Fund of Russia in connection with a criminal conspiracy with major Russian IT companies.
Investigators searched the offices of the Social Insurance Fund on Orlikovsky Lane in Moscow yesterday for several hours. They were looking for information on the ties between the fund and the noncommercial organization Fund for the Support and Development of Sanatoria and Tourism. The Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case under article 160 (“embezzlement”) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation about a month ago in connection with the embezzlement of federal budget funds allocated to regional branches of the Social Insurance Fund for a program to pay for camp and sanatorium stays for children at the rate of 400 rubles per place per day.
According to the Investigative Committee, “persons unknown to the investigation” had an elaborate scheme to misappropriate that money. Only camps and sanatoria that agreed to accept payment through an intermediary, which is prohibited under the law “On the Bases for Mandatory Social Insurance.” Those camps and sanatoria then established the Fund for the Support and Development of Sanatoria and Tourism to act as that intermediary. The camps and sanatoria were paid 270 rubles of every 400 ruble payment through the noncommercial organization they had set up, while the remaining money accumulated in that organization's accounts until it was stolen through front companies. Investigators think that hundreds of millions of rubles disappeared in the scheme.
Elena Sunyukova told Kommersant that “the Investigative Committee requested material from audits that we conducted in 2005” when it visited the building. “In May 2005,” she continued, “the Social Insurance Fund conducted an audit of the work number of regional divisions and children's sanatoria that had founded the Fund for the Support and Development of Sanatoria and Tourism. The chairman of the Fund initiated a repeat audit of the outcome of the summer recreation campaign. The facts that were exposed were the basis for halting all relations between the regional divisions of the Fund and the organization in question. Regional divisions have not worked with the Fund for the Support and Development of Sanatoria and Tourism since August 2005.”
The Investigative Committee was also busy yesterday with the case against the Pension Fund of Russia, which, like the Social Insurance Fund, is also under the control of the Ministry of Health and Social Development. The committee issued a press release accusing executives of the Pension Fund of “large-scale theft through embezzlement.” Those executives, according to the press release, “entered into a criminal conspiracy with representatives of the commercial firms Lanit, R-Style and IBM East Europe/Asia. According to information from the investigation, the following embezzlement scheme was used: competitions held to select a supply firm were fictitious – the commercial structures listed above were determined to be the winners from the beginning. The cost of the equipment supplied by them exceeded market prices by several times. The difference in prices was shared between the conspiring parties.”
Pension Fund head Gennady Batanov was in Chechnya yesterday for the opening of a branch of the Fund there. He stated that the investigation does not involve him. “I do not make purchases myself. There is a special service in the Pension Fund system for that,” he said. “I know for a fact that we did not exceed the sum allotted to the Fund for those purposes.” Audit Chamber of Russia auditor Sergey Agaptsov told Kommersant that an audit of the Pension Fund for 2005 that he led exposed the ineffective use of 1.1 billion rubles for the purchase of computer equipment. Batanov and Health and Social Development Minister Mikhail Zurabov were informed of the findings of the audit, Agaptsov said, and Batanov responded that he agreed with the findings.
IBM East Europe/Asia declined to comment on the Investigative Committee's accusations. Yury Kirsanov, lawyer for R-Style president Vasily Vasin, called the accusations “irresponsible and unfounded.” Head of the Lanit press service Konstantin Vasilyev told Kommersant that the company won one of six lots in the Pension Fund tender. “The prices that were proposed by our company were absolutely market prices,” Vasilyev said. “The loss mentioned seems to be connected with the fact that one company participating in the tender offered equipment that did not meet the requirements but was at a lower price. In connection with that, its offer was refused.”
Pavel Zaitsev, one of the leaders of the Investigative Committee confirmed Vasilyev's suggestion. He told Kommersant that the difference between the prices the Pension Fund paid R-Style and Lanit and the prices proposed by companies that were not selected in the tender was 300 million rubles.
Elena Volokhova, press secretary for the minister of health said that “Zurabov is in the northern regions of the country on a working trip and will return only on Saturday.” He will not comment on the cases until that time.
Alexander Zheglov, Darya Nikolaeva, Arina Sharipova
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 08, 2006
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