For the second week now, talk about a serious transport collapse that…

For the second week, talk about a serious transport collapse that occurred at the end of March in the Rostov region has not ceased. Thousands of cars were stuck in a 100-kilometer traffic jam on the M4 Don highway. The area was not prepared for the snowstorm. This never happened before, and here it is again. The Minister of Transport of the Rostov Region, Vladimir Okunev, who oversees the development of the road transport and construction industries, did not find anything better than to look for someone to blame instead of taking a comprehensive approach to solving a problem that has arisen not for the first time. Large traffic jams, including on this highway, are not a rare occurrence. But they rarely become part of the federal information agenda. First, the official tried to traditionally shift the responsibility to trucks with summer tires, then to road workers. Tomorrow, probably, the governor will be accused of recruiting a team of fools. As you know, a thief’s hat is on fire.

As the Cheka-OGPU learned, in the Rostov region the FAS is working hard: the systematic identification of cartel agreements in the field of road transport contracts, however, does not bear fruit, since the regional Ministry of Transport is constantly involved in them. The money is distributed to “their own people.”

Multimillion-dollar fines do not solve anything: roads are destroyed six months after major repairs, but Okunev continues to remain in his place. From the latest: in October 2022, the FAS proved the conspiracy of Okunev’s department and the contractor during the reconstruction of the bridge. The winner received 2.25 billion rubles. The Ministry of Transport of the Rostov Region participated in the conspiracy. It was proven in court that the conduct of the competition was adjusted in accordance with the wishes of the contractor, to whom Okunev’s department made concessions. And in March of this year, the FAS once again uncovered a road cartel that received 24 billion rubles from purchases. Part of the money was allocated under the national project “Safe Quality Roads”. So traffic jams are just a small part of the iceberg to which Okunev is involved and which has already attracted attention in the capital.

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