Head of the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological and Nuclear Supervision of the Russian Federation Konstantin Pulikovsky
Photo: Vasily Alexandrov
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Stand for Inspection
// Rostekhnadzor wants right to close businesses down before they get to court
Rostekhnadzor director Konstantin Pulikovsky will propose to the government that his service be given the right to close down any enterprise without waiting for a court order in cases of industrial safety violations. At present, Rostekhnadzor's orders to stop work for a week are frequently ignored. Business points out that Pulikovsky is widening Rostekhnadzor's, the Federal Service for Ecological, Technical and Atomic Supervision's, potential for corruption, but they do not dismiss the proposal out of hand.
Rostekhnadzor head Konstantin Pulikovsky announced yesterday during an Internet conference that his agency, on the instructions of the government, has prepared suggestions for improving safety at the facilities it supervises and its own operation. “It is a matter of a wide enough spectrum of suggestions,” he stated, noting that the proposed amendments will allow the service to shut down scofflaw enterprises without waiting for a court order. “I hope that those changes will be adopted,” he added.
Rostekhnadzor receive instructions about a month ago to prepare proposals to improve the agency's performance by August 5. Agency press secretary Evgeny Anoshin told Kommersant that the document prepared are a list of suggestions and not a draft law or government resolution. The agency declined to provide a copy of that document, saying that it is still subject to conciliation. It added that the agency's fines would be “at least doubled or tripled” as well.
Under the law “On Industrial Safety,” Rostekhnadzor has the right to stop work at an enterprise for up to five days. If the enterprise doe not make the changes the agency orders, Rostekhnadzor can file documents in court so that it makes a decision about shutting an enterprise down.
Agency spokesmen say that the present procedure for closing down businesses does not suit the agency. It is extremely difficult to get a court to stop work at an enterprise. “It is more profitable for entrepreneurs to stop work for a week than to modernize their equipment,” noted an agency representative. They mentioned at the agency that it had filed papers with the Novokuznetsky District Court in Kemerovo Region three times this year over inadequate safety equipment at the Yubileinaya mine and demanded that the mine be closed. The court threw out the administrative procedure each time. Thirty-nine people were killed by a methane explosion at the mine in May 2007.
In spite of the sharp rise in the potential for corruption at the agency implied in Pulikovsky's initiative, entrepreneurs and experts are not objecting to it. The Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists is giving the measures qualified support. “If Rostekhnadzor discovers that the emergency alarm system doesn't work at a mine, of course it should stop work there. But it is necessary to prevent excesses by officials. If they stop work because there are no technical manual, it's a different story,” Andrey Lotsmanov, deputy chairman of the RUEI committee on technical regulation, told Kommersant. Andrey Rakhmilovich of the law firm Margulyan and Rakhmilovich noted that “Entrepreneurs may be unscrupulous as well as officials. On everything is a legal issue, there are technical issues as well.”
Georgy Satarov, president of the Indem Fund and deputy chairman of the national anticorruption committee, is inclined to look beyond the corruption issue in the agency's proposal as well. “It's completely possible that Rostekhnadzor is sincerely convinced that it can accomplish something that way. But that conviction is naïve,” he said. Satarov remains certain that the court should make decisions on closing businesses down. “When any legal procedure is put at the monopolistic discretion of an official, the conditions for corruption are set. It is completely obvious that this will be a source of additional corruption,” he said.
According to Anton Zubikhin, executive secretary of the RUEI committee on technical regulation, Rostekhnadzor will have to make amendments to the law “On Technical Regulation.” That law prohibits closing down enterprises without a court order. The law “On Industrial Safety” will have to be amended too.
No one is wiling to speculate on the level of support Rostekhnadzor's initiative will receive in the government and State Duma. And Pulikovsky is not stopping there. He is proposing, in contradiction to the Budget Code, is proposing that the fines the service collects should be left in its management. “The fines are now sent to the budget,” Pulikovsky noted, “and we cannot follow how those funds are used. They should be used for nature preservation.” He is determined to take control over the spending of the 120 million rubles per year collected by the service in the form of fines.
The Rostekhnadzor initiative may meet with success in the government. The last mine accident is fresh in the memory and the argument about saving workers lives by imposing an extrajudicial ban on dangerous working conditions could be effective. If Pulikovsky gets what he wants, he will have every chance to join Gennady Onishchenko, head of Rospotrebnadzor, the federal consumer rights agency, as the most authoritative officials for the business community. Onishchenko had a cautious response to the possible competition in industrial regulation. “We need to see what specifically Pulikovsky will propose before deciding whether of not to trust him,” Onishchenko told Kommersant.
Alexander Gudkov
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 01, 2007
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