Leading Russian Economist Slams Medvedev’s Move To ‘Police’ State Companies

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, July 22, 2013) Head of research at the Higher School of Economics Yevgeniy Yasin has described the Russian government instruction placing heads of state companies under obligation to account for their income and spending on par with officials as “absolute piffle”. Instead of building these mechanisms, one should continue the course to privatization, the economist has told the Praym agency.

“When you have set up a whole load of state companies and corporations, and want to police them in the same way as officials to boot, it’s absolute piffle. You can tell Dmitriy Anatolyevich (Medvedev) that he should not listen to all those people milling around him,” Yasin said.

Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev announced on Monday (22 July) that he had signed an instruction in accordance with which the heads of 29 institutions and companies, including Russian Railways, Olimpstroy (responsible for the construction of facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi), (official state news agency) ITAR-TASS and the Strategic Initiatives Agency, will have to account for their income and spending in the same way as state officials currently do.

If the state wants to police the people who work for it directly, then it sets up state institutions, Yasin said. If, on the other hand, the state does not need this but has state enterprises, it privatizes them. “And then the people who become the owners or represent the owners organize the necessary accountability and so on,” the expert said.

Attempts to organize the policing of the income and spending of the staff of state companies will be paid for by the taxpayer, Yasin added. “We’ll be stuck with it, because there will now be officials to police it all, and so on. Who needs all this?” he said.

Only reducing the role of the state in the economy can have the effect of curbing bureaucracy and bribery, the expert reiterated. “Give the market more opportunities. If you are not prepared to, then you can do all sorts of silly things, but preferably without us, without those at whose expense it is done,” Yasin said in conclusion.