The regional prosecutor's office has identified violations of anti-corruption legislation by executive and administrative bodies during the exercise of ownership supervision in business entities.

The state's participation in the management of business entities, whose shares (stakes in authorized funds) belong to the Vitebsk region, is one of the methods of direct state influence on the region's economy. It is precisely the participation of state representatives in the management bodies of joint-stock companies that is necessary, first and foremost, to protect the economic interests of the Vitebsk region, to adopt decisions by business entities that correspond to such interests, and to directly control their activities.

According to the results of the inspection carried out by the Vitebsk Regional Prosecutor's Office on the implementation of anti-corruption legislation in the exercise of owner's supervision by executive and administrative bodies in business entities, it was established that the bodies exercising owner's supervision (the activities of the committees for agriculture and food, for architecture and construction, and economics of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee were analyzed in this area) do not ensure proper control over the activities of state representatives, who, in turn, often formally and, consequently, ineffectively perform their duties to protect the economic interests of the Vitebsk region and its regions.

For example, the procedure for coordinating the position of a state representative with the body exercising owner's supervision was not always ensured, and the 10-day period for state representatives to submit proposals on their position, including on coordination issues, to the body exercising owner's supervision was often violated.

In all cases, state representatives did not accurately reflect the real state of affairs in the companies in their activity reports, and did not express substantiated positions on voting matters at the meetings of the supervisory boards of business entities.

Certain discrepancies were found in the amounts of remuneration reflected in the reports of state representatives and in the accounting data submitted by the body exercising owner's supervision, as well as certain violations related to the procedure for declaring income and property.

The results of the activities of state representatives in business entities were not always objectively assessed by the bodies exercising ownership supervision; individual indicators were clearly overstated, thereby artificially creating a positive effect of activity.

Underestimation of the significance of decisions made by state representatives at the meetings of supervisory boards of business entities, lack of initiative in participating in the work of the companies' management bodies, and lack of coordination with the body exercising ownership supervision increase the corruption component in the adoption of decisions by companies that can entail grave consequences in the form of property damage, both for the economic entity itself and significant damage to the economic interests of the region.

Thus, the violations of anti-corruption legislation in the activities of state representatives, identified during the inspection, indicate obvious omissions on the part of the committees for agriculture and food, for architecture and construction, and the economy of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee in exercising ownership supervision in business entities, the shares (stakes in authorized capital) of which belong to the Vitebsk region.

Based on the results of the inspection, the regional prosecutor's office submitted a submission to the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee demanding to eliminate the identified violations of the legislation on combating corruption and on ownership supervision, the causes and conditions that contributed to them, to take additional organizational and practical measures to eliminate the violations of anti-corruption legislation mentioned therein, and also to bring the guilty officials to disciplinary responsibility.

Prosecutor of the Department for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime
of the Regional Prosecutor's Office Vera Larkova