'Persona grata': Aleksei Konov
Head of the civil service directorate of the Institute of Public and Municipal Management of NRU HSE Alexei Konov, a most welcome guest at the studio of Radio Russia, speaks about the declaration of income and expenses by civil servants.
Aleksei KONOV: There have been two substantial attempts to move civil servants to declare their expenses and income. The first was the reform of 1997-98, when two presidential decrees came into force on the procedure for submitting information on income, property and property-based obligations, plus a decree on the verification of this information. The second was the decrees, adopted in 2008-09; there were several decrees on the procedure for providing information and two decrees on verification. And now the third attempt is unfolding before our very eyes - additional reform, or post-reform. This attempt to adopt a law on control over expenses could at last, perhaps, balance the expenses and the income of civil servants, although in itself this is not very likely.
Indicators of corruption and declarations of interests have to be entered
Head of the civil service directorate of the Institute of Public and Municipal Management of the NRU HSE Alexei KONOV told Kommersant correspondent Irina GRANIK what is still missing in the Russian system for public servants to declare their income.
Code of ethics for the bureaucrat
In theory, the requirement for officials to publish declarations of their income and assets is a good way to keep bureaucrats in check. In practice, this turns out as a mere publicity stunt with questionable informative value.
Alexei Kononov, head of the public service management department of IPAMM at the Higher School of Economics, answers questions from the Expert journal.