Putin Orders Russian Civil Servants To Dump Foreign Assets

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a new decree ordering all officials and civil servants to close their foreign bank accounts and be rid of offshore financial assets within the next three months, or face instant dismissal from their post, reported the Financial Times.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a new decree ordering all officials and civil servants to close their foreign bank accounts and be rid of offshore financial assets within the next three months, or face instant dismissal from their post, reported the Financial Times.

Putin, who last December outlined a mission to “de-offshore” Russia’s economy, warned that any official caught in possession of foreign assets after July 1 would be immediately sacked, while civil servants would face stringent checks on their finances following the deadline.

[quote]“There are no untouchables and there cannot be any,” said Sergei Ivanov, Putin’s chief of staff.[/quote]

According to Russia Today, The bill Putin submitted to parliament was also “softer” than the one he had initially proposed, which would have forbade officials from owning even property abroad. Putin’s new bill also gives officials some provisions for opening foreign accounts, but only through Russian banks.

“This is [the] nationalisation of the elite,” said Konstantin Kostin, a former Kremlin deputy head of domestic policy, who now heads the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society, a Moscow think-tank.

[quote]”For a long time, many in the elite saw Russia as a hunting ground – they would keep their money and live somewhere else. That problem cannot be addressed by one law, of course, but only by political willpower and the consolidation of society around the idea,” Kostin added.[/quote]

Ivanov also dismissed critics who suggested that the new rule was aimed at improving Putin’s image by portraying him as being tough on corruption.

“The fight against corruption is no public relations campaign or attempt to draw attention away from serious problems, it is a long war,” Ivanov said, as cited by Reuters.

Corruption “discredits the authorities,” and is a ”rust that eats away at the very foundations of statehood and public morals,” he added.

According to Russia Today, 322 civil servants were fired last year after auditors checked 211,000 of 1.3 million submitted income declarations for 2011. Generals from the Emergencies Ministry were among those fired.

Nonetheless, Russia still ranks 133rd out of 174 states in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perception Index, with its central bank chief reporting in February that almost $50 billion was sent abroad illegally last year.

Related: Nearly $50bn Left Russia Illegally in 2012, Reveals Central Bank

Related: Post-Soviet Russia Sees $764 Billion In Total Illicit Flows: Report

Related: A New Russian Empire: What Exactly Is Putin Planning?

Ksenia Sorokina, editor of Moscow-based Snob magazine, told FT

[quote]: “There is a sort of algorithm [in Russia] for civil servants. You stash a lot of money abroad, send your family to live there, and then when you retire, you join them. This new legislation will put a question mark next to the career plan of a generation of top-level people.”[/quote]

“The responsibility for the country is formed not out of slogans and speeches, but when people see that the government is transparent,” Putin also said in a speech last December.

Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a privately funded organisation, however warned that implementation of the law may prove difficult.

“The bureaucracy always has ways of defending its interests,” said Kabanov; and according to Yevgeny Shkolov, a senior official in the president’s administration, revenues of companies registered to family members of civil servants need not be declared.