No criminal cases expected over violations in Skolkovo innovation centre

Skolkovo File Photo

(Interfax – October 31, 2013) The materials of the checks carried out by the Prosecutor-General’s Office, which uncovered serious violations regarding the use of budget funds in the Skolkovo innovation foundation, will not cause an immediate launch of criminal cases, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported, quoting an informed source in the law-enforcement structures as saying.

No criminal cases expected immediately – source

“No-one will be immediately ‘locked up’ in the Skolkovo foundation. Also it is not expected that any criminal cases would be launched on the basis of these checks,” the source said. He noted that “everything will depend on how quickly and consistently the leadership of the Skolkovo foundation will act to rectify the violations”.

Earlier, the head of the Russian Presidential Administration, Sergey Ivanov, expressed surprise over the wording of the complaints against Skolkovo. “I was very much surprised by the wording – the danger of budget funds being used not for their intended purpose. Frankly, I don’t quite understand what this is,” Ivanov told journalists and added that the matter needed to be sorted out.

Government not planning to take any new decisions

Arkady Dvorkovich file photoDeputy Prime Minister Arkadiy Dvorkovich said that the Skolkovo foundation is working on rectifying the violations discovered by the Prosecutor-General’s Office and the government is not intending to take additional decisions to correct the situation. When asked by the agency whether the government would take any new decisions following the statements by the Prosecutor-General’s Office, Dvorkovich said that “constructive work is under way both with the Prosecutor-General’s Office and the Comptroller’s Office. We do not plan any actions.”

“This was not new information from the Prosecutor-General’s Office, all this was known two months ago and the work was already under way on every issue raised by the Prosecutor-General’s Office,” Interfax quoted him as saying.

According to Dvorkovich, who is the deputy-prime minister overseeing the work of Skolkovo in the government, regarding a number of violations pointed out by the Prosecutor-General’s Office, decisions were already taken, including on the level of the government.

“In particular, a sub-programme of one of the state programmes relating to the development of Skolkovo has been approved. It established all target indicators and links financing to achieving concrete targets. It was one of the complaints from the Prosecutor-General’s office that a programme of this kind was not in place,” Dvorkovich said.

Other decisions are being taken at the level of the foundation. “Everything necessary is being done,” he said.

Comment