Russia fights corruption in national shipbuilding

According to a recent statement from Sergei Ivanov, head of the presidential administration, in recent years the level of corruption in the national shipbuilding industry has significantly increased, forcing the government to pay greater attention to the problem.

Mr Ivanov quotes an instance in which air conditioning equipment was supplied for one particular ship at a price 11 times higher than the original. According to official data, in the first half of 2014, 3,700 officials and managers in the shipbuilding industry were prosecuted for various violations and crimes.

Mr Ivanov said that this corruption was behind the dismissal of a number of high-ranking officials, supervising national shipbuilding in the Russian government and the country’s law-enforcement agencies. For example, numerous violations resulted in the dismissal of Evgeny Kuzhel, chief of the Russian Ministry of the Interior in the Far Eastern Federal District.

Due to the complexity of the current situation concerning national shipbuilding corruption, the government has not ruled out the possibility of establishing a special department within the Ministry of Internal Affairs that will focus on the problem.