On improving the effectiveness of law enforcement and other state bodies in combating corruption

The meeting noted that in fulfillment of the requirements of the Head of State regarding equality of all before the law and the inevitability of responsibility, regardless of positions held and past merits, law enforcement and other state bodies of the region are taking practical measures to prevent, detect, and suppress corruption.

Specific preventive measures to minimize existing corruption risks and threats are developed, approved, and implemented annually within the framework of regional comprehensive programs for crime prevention. The most problematic issues of strengthening legality and combating corruption are regularly considered at coordination and interdepartmental meetings, sessions of the regional executive committee, city and district executive committees, and administrations of the city of Vitebsk. The results of anti-corruption efforts are regularly communicated to the public and covered in the media.

The measures taken contribute to the detection and suppression of a significant number of corruption-related crimes and offenses.

Thus, over 8 months of 2017, 212 corruption crimes were recorded in the region, which is significantly more than in the same period of 2016. 83 officials were brought to justice for committing corruption crimes. The largest number of corruption crimes was registered in the education sector (40). At the same time, the facts of detecting such crimes committed by employees of local authorities, regulatory, and law enforcement agencies (35 crimes) are alarming. Regarding criminal cases

For cases of this category, material damage in the amount of over 6.5 million denominated rubles has been established. Taking into account the property arrest imposed, the total percentage of damage compensation was 90.3%.

However, in not all regions of the oblast, the work of territorial law enforcement bodies to identify and suppress corruption-related crimes is effective (no registered corruption crimes in Beshenkovichsky, Dokshitsky, Dubrovensky, Rossonksky districts). The work in this area by the Braslavsky, Lepelsky, Sennensky District Departments of Internal Affairs is ineffective.

There are cases of formal record-keeping in operational accounting by individual departments of the BBEP, which negatively affects the effectiveness of the work carried out to identify corruption manifestations. Other departments of territorial District Departments of Internal Affairs (criminal investigation, public security police, traffic police, and others) practically do not participate in identifying corruption facts.

Cases of poor-quality pre-investigation checks on materials of a corruption nature, and premature initiation of criminal cases are allowed. Due to the incompleteness of the conducted checks and the need for additional verification actions by the prosecutor's office, 79 illegal decisions of inquiry bodies to refuse to initiate a criminal case were canceled.

Attention is also drawn to cases of termination of criminal cases of a corruption nature due to the absence of an event or corpus delicti. In the current year, investigative departments have terminated 13 such criminal cases (Orshansky, Polotsky MOSK, SU USK, Gluboksky, Dokshitsky, Sennensky, Tolochinsky ROSK, Novopolotsky GOSK).

Proper interaction between law enforcement and supervisory bodies is not always ensured when appointing and conducting checks on the financial and economic activities of enterprises and organizations in cases and materials. More attention needs to be paid to preventing illegal and inefficient spending of budget funds, conducting procurement of goods (works, services), and maximizing the compensation of damage caused by corruption.

Work on preventing manifestations of corruption, and informing the public about the results of law enforcement agencies' work to combat corruption, should be carried out on a systematic basis. The activities of anti-corruption commissions need to be intensified, as many of them work formally, without having a real impact on the prevention of corruption offenses.

In order to ensure proper interaction between interested departments in combating corruption and economic crime, the coordination meeting developed an appropriate decision, the implementation of which has been taken under control.

Acting Head of the Organizational and Control Department of the Vitebsk Regional Prosecutor's Office                                                   S.L. Zaitseva