In September, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Defense and Chief of Logistics Dmitry Bulgakov was dismissed. As the Cheka-OGPU found out, this fact coincided with the fact that during the inspection of the Prosecutor General’s Office, initiated by a letter from the chairmen of the State Duma committees on defense and on security and anti-corruption, new episodes of large-scale thefts were discovered in the rear of the Moscow Region. In particular, facts of unjustified inflated prices for the purchase of fuel and lubricants and fuel for the needs of the Ministry of Defense were revealed. For the first time, such actions were recorded when the Department of Defense Industry revealed during an audit that purchase prices, approved by Deputy Minister of Defense for Logistics Bulgakov, were inflated by 31 billion rubles, twice as high as compared to the retail market. The ability to inflate prices as safely as possible was ensured by the “Automated system for controlling fuels and lubricants” agreed upon by Bulgakov, as well as the “Rules for the procurement of fuels and lubricants” for the needs of the Ministry of Defense. These rules provide for the possibility of purchasing fuel and lubricants from a single supplier through closed procedures. And instead of a fixed price, a formula for calculating it is used. At the same time, the corresponding government decree does not contain a specific formula and rules for its calculation, giving the customer (the Ministry of Defense) the right to independently establish the formula for calculating the contract price and its maximum value. This procedure for determining the price of forming a contract creates ideal corruption-prone conditions for theft and fraud.
The volume of supplies of motor fuel for the needs of the Moscow Region is about 2-2.5 million tons per year, and under the conditions of the SVO, these volumes can increase by 20-25%. Thus, a simple extrapolation of thefts to the current situation, taking into account inflation, gives figures for “inflated payments” by 55-60 billion rubles.
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