State-owned companies to ban purchases from companies relatives of the employees – RBC

Photo: Vladimir Sergeev / RIA Novosti

Ministry of Economic Development has proposed to ban state-owned companies to buy goods and services from companies associated with the relatives of employees of state-owned companies. Now the ban is valid only for departments

Economic Development wants to increase the transparency of procurement of state companies, which in the past year, according to the Accounting Chamber (AC), purchased goods and services by 23.1 trillion rubles. The Office proposes to amend the 223-FZ, which are purchased by state-owned companies: they may ban the purchase goods and services from companies affiliated with the relatives of the officials responsible for procurement in the state-owned company. The corresponding bill is posted for public comment on the portal regulation.gov.ru August 29.

With each purchase the customer will be required to establish the requirement of the absence between them and a party purchases a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is a situation in which the head of the company that carries out the purchase, or the head of the service contract, a member of the commission on purchases or the contract manager is married to the beneficiary or the beneficiary of the Executive or the head of a company or to an individual entrepreneur – a party purchases . The bill lists and other communication facilities that would be regarded as a conflict of interest, – parents and children, grandfather / grandmother and grandchildren, brothers and sisters (including not full) and adoptive parents and adoptees. Under the proposed beneficiary understand the natural persons that directly or indirectly owns more than 10% of the voting shares (stakes) of the company. Under beneficiary – physical person that has the ability to directly or indirectly control the company’s actions. To check possible links will be required to own the company-customers.

In the explanatory memorandum to the bill states that the ban on participation in the procurement of natural and legal persons who have a conflict of interest with the client, already applies to the procurement of government agencies. Economic Development Ministry representative told RBC that the check is planned affiliation through the system registry offices and the Federal Tax Service. Talk about how the new requirement will affect the duration of the procurement procedures, it is too early, she said

Now 223-FZ does not regulate the concept of conflict of interest, says Deputy Director General. “Transparency International – Russia” Ilya Shumanov. He recalled that in late July, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika has signed an order approving the plan for the fight against corruption and kickbacks in state procurement (write “Vedomosti” about this). “One of the plan of theses – the spread of the concept of conflict of interest in the state-owned companies, state corporations, and so on” – he says

The new rule may lead to the fact that the time of purchase will increase, because customers may have to interact with the tax. registry offices and the system does not exclude Shumanov. “The costs of companies is not to increase such checks do not take a lot of time”, – employee objections Rosset.

Norma de facto acts

number of state-owned companies already checks for the presence of purchase of a conflict of interests, are engaged in their own security, says Ombudsman procurement Sergey Gabestro. For example, Russian Railways approved the exclusion of conflict of interest, said RBC’s representative: “If this revealed that the company’s employees involved in the conflict [of interest] may be excluded from the procurement.” Rosset officer also said that in the framework of procurement procedures such inspection was carried out by the security service. “In fact, the bill simply consolidate the rule which exists in state-owned companies and now”, – he says

In “RusHydro”, “at the conclusion of agreements a precondition is to provide information and supporting documents in respect of the entire chain of company owners, including. final beneficiaries as well as the signing of a letter of guarantee for the failure-day firms to fulfill obligations under the treaties. ” Management of “RusHydro”, annually grants the declaration, which include data on the ownership of shares (stakes) of other companies, including close relatives. These data are checked for conflicts of interest. “In the case of identifying the measures to resolve it (the output from the founders, non-conclusion of contracts, and others.)”, – Stated in the comments of the company for RBC

«Gazprom» The representative referred to the release of the company on April 19. , which it states that the company “at the conclusion of contracts and purchasing a lot of attention is given to identifying the risks associated with the possible affiliation of potential contractors with employees of the company».

«But until now, no direct responsibility prescribed by law , allows you to take or not to take measures for the guilty people “, – says Shumanov of” Transparency International -.

Russia “Previous Accounting Chamber drew attention to other imperfections 223-FZ, which do not allow to stop a conflict of interest between customers and performers. In total, the joint venture on the results of inspections revealed violations of the legislation on corporate purchases more than 620 million rubles. Companies gave gospodryady subcontractors and earned intermediary services, set unrealistic deadlines filing corporate procurement parties, and make serious changes in the terms of the contracts already after the purchase. The 223-FZ no provisions aimed at improving the efficiency of spending, it allows corporate customers to deploy an unlimited number of cases when you can buy a product or service from a single supplier. “This carries the risk of corruption, and also leads to inefficient spending of funds,” – said in a joint venture materials.