Corruption offenses

The Vitebsk Transport Prosecutor's Office has analyzed the compliance of one of the supervised enterprises with the requirements of the Law of the Republic of Belarus "On Combating Corruption" dated 15.07.2015 No. 305-Z (hereinafter referred to as the Law) regarding the observance by officials of the restrictions established by Articles 17-20 of the Law.

The results of the analysis showed that, in general, the requirements of the specified legislation are observed at the enterprise. No facts of entrepreneurial activity by employees have been established at the present time. However, during the analysis, it was found that certain officials had previously violated the restrictions established for public officials and persons equated to them.

Article 17 of the Law stipulates that a public official is not entitled to engage in entrepreneurial activities personally or through other persons, or to assist their spouse, close relatives, or in-laws in engaging in entrepreneurial activities by using their official position.

Contrary to these requirements, certain employees, being public officials, were registered with the district tax authorities of the Republic of Belarus as individual entrepreneurs.

A case was established where an employee was registered as an individual entrepreneur before taking up the position of a public official, and, despite not engaging in entrepreneurial activities, information about his registration was still not removed from the Unified State Register. His activity is currently in the liquidation stage.

In this case, the employee does not actually engage in entrepreneurial activities aimed at obtaining profit and does not formally violate the established prohibition, but has the opportunity to resume it.

It was also established that the order of the head of the enterprise approved a list of positions and professions for which, upon hiring, it is required to sign obligations to comply with the restrictions established by the Law. At the same time, the form of the signed obligations is uniform for all officials on the specified list and contains a prohibition on

performing other paid work not related to the performance of labor duties at the main place of work.

At the same time, according to Part 2 of Article 17 of the Law, the prohibition on performing other paid work not related to the performance of labor duties at the main place of work applies only to the head of a state organization, his deputies, and the chief accountant.

Consequently, such a prohibition applies only to deputy heads and chief accountants.

Cases have been established when obligations to comply with restrictions were imposed on warehouse keepers and ordinary accountants, whose job duties do not involve performing organizational, managerial, and (or) administrative and economic functions, and therefore anti-corruption restrictions do not apply to this category of persons.

Such violations contribute to the unreasonable restriction of the rights and freedoms of persons holding these positions.

Persons holding positions related to the performance of organizational and managerial duties include persons who manage the activities of an institution, organization, or enterprise, their structural divisions, personnel placement and selection, labor or service organization of employees, maintaining discipline, applying incentive measures and imposing disciplinary penalties, etc.

A submission on eliminating violations of anti-corruption legislation, the causes and conditions contributing to them, has been made to the head of the enterprise.

Vitebsk Transport Prosecutor
Senior Justice Advisor A.A. Tsarikov