Press Service
Combating corruption is state task, human decency – individual quality
Sergey Bulavin, Deputy Minister of the Interior, told "Komsomolskaya Pravda" about the changes in the ministry.
"HALF SENIOR OFFICIALS REPLACED"
- Sergey Petrovich, what are the first results of the MVD's ongoing reform?
- There is a change of ideology, rather than that of the door plaque. This is not a "facelift" but setting up an entirely new structure whose employees work professionally and are able to effectively protect not only the citizen's life and property, but also their constitutional rights and freedoms.
- Have you succeeded in it?
- The reform has concerned every police officer. If there was even a slightest sign of the compromising data on the employee, they did not get the office. Nearly half of the senior officials have been replaced. According to the rotation scheme, almost 2/3 of the senior staff have changed their former place of service. Altogether, over 875,000 Internal Affairs authority employees have come to serve in the police. The re-certification was carried out under the strict public control.
LOST CONFIDENCE - LEAVE OFFICE
- And have you succeeded in solving the corruption problem?
- A new term - "Anti-Corruption Resistance" has been coined in the Russian police. It was promoted both by the public awareness efforts in subdivisions, and the new legislation which establishes a number of anti-corruption standards and the severe behavior restrictions imposed on the employees. Now, the employees are obliged to submit declarations on their income, their spouses' and even children's income. For the first time, "loss of confidence" has been introduced as one of the reasons for the dismissal of a policeman. The limiting factor found use in increasing social guarantees and allowances.
- Has bribery become less frequent then?
- Last year, we registered more than 500 instances when the Internal Affairs staff members were offered a bribe which they refused. The bribers were handed over to the investigation department. Here are a few cases. A resident of the capital, the owner of the truck arrested with the contraband cargo, offered first 30 and then 200 thousand USD to Jambul Deuli, the deputy chief of the police department for Pogarsky District of Bryansk Oblast. In return, he asked the police officer not to initiate criminal proceedings against him. The policeman refused and reported the incident to his supervisors. No sooner had the entrepreneur presented money than he was arrested. Now, the businessman will pay a penalty of over 8 million rubles for the attempted bribery. Or the case in Volgograd: the owner of the underground casino offered the police 45,000 rubles. And now, he is accused of bribing as well running an illegal business.
BONUS FOR REFUSAL TO ACCEPT BRIBE
- And how are the honest employees rewarded?
- For example, the Interior Ministry for the Republic of Tatarstan has been maintaining a program of incentives for refusing to accept a bribe for 10 years already. The policeman who has unmasked a briber receives a reward in the amount of the remuneration offered to him. It is payable only if the fact of bribery has been documented, and the legal proceedings have been initiated against the briber. Under this program, over 3 million rubles was allocated from the national budget to reward 174 police employees from 2002 to 2011. I think that this approach is noteworthy, and we are considering such an experience.
- Is it possible to completely eradicate this evil?
- Alas, no country in the world has been able to achieve this. Yet it is worth trying nevertheless. Today, it is important to explain to the citizens that a bribe to a police officer is fraught with problems. Trying to "solve the problem", the person will receive a large fine or prison sentence. People may need public awareness advertisements, special information programs clearly highlighting the consequences of a bribe. It all starts with an individual. Combating corruption is certainly a state task, whereas human decency is an individual quality. Corruption should become not just illegal but indecent.
- If the police cannot be bought, won't anyone just try to eliminate an honest employee?
- Risking their lives is the police officers' duty. We have to admit that a number of unlawful acts against the MVD employees and Internal Troops officers has increased by 64%. Criminals do not confine themselves to threats though. The past year featured over 20,000 crimes committed against police officers. 3,602 policemen were injured, and 322 MVD and Internal Troops employees were killed. 926 staff members received state awards. Five of them were posthumously awarded the Hero of Russia title.
- What are plans for this year?
- We are implementing all measures to improve social security and allowances of the policemen. We plan to switch over to an affiliate model of interaction with the public which imposes high professional requirements on the personnel.
Hopefully, this "symbiosis" will encourage ordinary citizens to render support and invaluable assistance in the fight against crime. The process of updating the MVD system is running, and it is irreversible.
