Prohibition of foreign accounts for officials

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Yesterday the State Duma committee on security recommended the lower house of the parliament to adopt the presidential bill which prohibits official to have accounts abroad. The bill will be considered by PMs on Friday. Chances for adoption are high, considering positive views of experts on the bill.

“The problem is not about foreign accounts, which are not a sin or a crime; the problem is about the conflict of interests,” Mikhail Leontyev, editor-in-chief of “Odnako” magazine, thinks. “People who have to protect the sovereignty of a country shouldn’t make themselves dependent on this or that country where a conflict of interests will appear sooner or later. It simply doesn’t correlate to their job. This law has no direct connection with the struggle against corruption. Anti-corruption measures belong to an absolutely different sphere.”

Valery Fadeyev, the head of the Institute of Social Projecting, the editor-in-chief of “Expert” Magazine, mentioned the UK, speaking about the bill: “There is no such a law in the UK, and any citizen and politician can have accounts anywhere, including Russia. But if a candidate to be an MP has an account in Switzerland, nobody would even ask him what he has this account for. Public opinion will judge him at once, and the candidate will have no chance of being an MP. They think: we understand that we have excellent banks, and if you have an account in Switzerland, you need it for some reasons which we don’t like because we, the voters, have no such goals. A similar situation exists in other European countries. Social restrictions are stronger than the restrictions of a law.

The other questions are how we can reach this; whether our laws will work; and whom we should rely on. 23 companies out of 50 major Russian non-governmental companies are either Russian companies registered offshore abroad or Western companies which have offices here, but the decision making center is situated abroad. Therefore, at least a half of major companies have decision-making centers abroad, not in our country. One of our goals is to make national capital the political subject out of these patriotic medium-sized businesses.”

Leonid Polyakov, departmental head at the Russian Economic University, reminds that the USA adopted the Sergey Magnitsky Rule of Law and Accountability Act, according to which any Russian citizen who can violate human rights by the nature of his office, i.e. officials, can get onto this list. This leads to freezing of accounts, stocks, and real property. This law was adopted. Now there are real prospects that some countries of the European Union will follow the example of Big Brother and launch similar sanctions. The humanist mission of our law, which should be adopted as soon as possible, is to protect the ruling elite from such invasions.”

“If a person has accounts abroad, if these are large sums, his loyalty is ambiguous,” Konstantin Kostin, chairman of the Fund of Civil Society Development, says. “If the Magnitsky Act exists, it should work somehow, but even without the act, the presence of major accounts of state officials abroad creates problems with loyalty, creates a basis for interference of the country where the accounts are situation in our internal policy.”

Sergey Markov, vice-president of the Russian Economic University, remembered a recent incident with Alexander Dolmatov. “The special forces of the Netherlands incited a socio-political activist to commit suicide. According to his note, they tried to make an active agent of this line out of him. I think offshore property is an instrument of special services, and not only special services because the national interests of the USA, for instance, are provided not only by CIA and FBI, the whole political system is working as a team. And the law suggests they are making a choice – whether they are devoted to the Russian state or they leave the state system and become businessmen.”

“There are always people who invest in internal markets and who invest in foreign markets. The question of their inner loyalty is acute,” Maxim Shevchenko, the head of the Center for Strategic Studies of Religion and Politics in the Modern World, states. “I think the Federation Council will be empty. Billionaires of various kinds who work there wouldn’t invest in Russian football clubs. I wish business won’t be hurt during implementation of the law, because capital is free, capital is beyond borders, capital can travel across borders. If the law concerns officials and voters, I wish it wouldn’t strike capital which alighted on its feet in the Russian Federation and belongs to the Russian national capital which is invested, even though it operated in the world markets. Bonds and stocks of other foreign entities – it means a person cannot buy stocks of Google, IBM or any other corporation, can he? I think it is necessary to understand the issue.

I deal with the Caucasus, the south of the country. I can say there are no non-corrupt schemes of getting state tenders, money, and then the money goes abroad. It is difficult to invest in the country. I hope this law will lead to the establishment of a political elite, a state elite in Russia. The rules of the game should be changed. We will have to find new personnel for the political elite of Russia, whose status and political loyalty are determined not by money which they have or by an opportunity to organize a party in a club for political establishment, but by their views. I hope this is a serious step toward forming of the national elite - a free democratic country with capital holders, people whom people trust the power and who are loyal only to the country, its people, and its historic path.”