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Pensions Watchdog Waves off Embezzlement Reports
The Russian Pension Fund has sent a letter to the investigators who seized the fund’s documents in a corruption probe at the agency. Officials at the fund claim that accusations of collusion with IT companies are groundless.
Gennady Batanov, head of the Russian Pension Fund, sent a letter to the chief of the Investigation Committee at the Interior Ministry, Alexey Anichin, on Friday to denounce the committee’s press release which covers an embezzlement probe at the agency. The report gives preliminary results of the searches which were held at the fund’s office as well as at headquarters of Lanit, R-Style and IBM East Europe/Asia IT companies.
The press release said that a number of the fund’s executives had been in a criminal collusion with representatives of these companies to embezzle the money allocated for computer and software purchases. “The cost of the equipment was declared as twice or thrice as much as its market price,” the press release said, “and the parties have shared the variation in prices.”
Mr. Batanov insists that these statements are libel since no criminal cases against the agency’s employees have been opened and none of his colleagues have been charged yet. The head of the Russian Pension Fund says that that statement has violated assumption of innocence. The official believes that this paper has damaged the agency’s business reputation and asks the investigators to refrain from releasing any kind of similar information in the future.
The press service of the Interior Ministry’s Investigation Committee declined to comment yesterday.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 09, 2006
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