Medvedev: government officials should share economic risks by keeping money in Russia

File Photo of Cash, Coins, Line Graph

(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 22, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes that government officials and members of parliament should share economic risks with the rest of the country and keep their money in Russian banks, but he is not convinced that they should be prohibited from holding foreign assets.

“Members of the government, State Duma deputies, administration officials should after all share all risks with their country, their economy. If you live in Russia and govern it, then answer for its economy, understanding that your money is completely dependent on how you govern,” Medvedev said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda published on Wednesday.

He remarked that the situation with foreign real estate is “more flexible” because the law requires simply one to declare the sources of the income with which the real estate was purchased. “I believe that this is also right,” Medvedev said.

The issue of other foreign assets is more complex, he said. “It seems to me that we shouldn’t after all completely cut off those people who, entering government service, becoming deputies, fall into a difficult situation. Such a person is told: immediately sell your business or we will fire you. Perhaps he did this for a long time and will simply lose money,” Medvedev said.

However, he said that this model has already been chosen and suggested seeing “how workable it turns out to be.”

Asked whether these people might simply leave the government and other state institutions in order to preserve their money, Medvedev said: “I can’t rule anything out. But this will be a certain signal about the effectiveness of these rules. For our goal is not to push wealthy people out of the government (including regions and municipalities) or the parliament. We want to see successful people in government, among deputies, not people who have hidden something and say: no, no, everything’s fine, everything is quiet, don’t worry we earn three kopecks.”

However, Medvedev believes that the decision to require government officials to declare their incomes and expenditures was the right one.

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