The Finance Ministry has published a draft regulation that civil servants' family members do not have to declare their incomes, in a move that experts say makes the Kremlin's transparency efforts meaningless.
The Finance Ministry has drawn up a draft regulation allowing civil servants' wives and children to conceal their incomes should they have "objective reasons" for doing so, the Vedomosti newspaper reported on Monday.
While not specifying what those "objective reasons" may be, the document says sufficient proof will be a written intention of notice not to reveal their earnings - something that the president's decree on income declaration for civil servants says they can't do.
The regulation "renders senseless" the government's efforts to make the country's bureaucracy more transparent, says Vladimir Yuzhakov of the Center for Strategic Development, as it would allow corrupt bureaucrats to put money away in bank accounts in their wives' and children's names.
The ruling will only lead to more corruption, commentators say, while complaining that the government's drive to get high ranking officials to reveal their incomes has been nothing but window-dressing.
The ministry's project is an attempt to legitimize bureaucrats' unwillingness to come under the spotlight, expert Alexander Moskalets says.
Shortly after coming to office in 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared corruption the number one threat to modern Russian society and vowed to significantly tighten anti-corruption laws.
Medvedev signed in April a bill on the creation of a national anti-corruption program for 2010-2011 aimed at eliminating corruption, including among top officials.
The Berlin-based non-governmental anti-corruption organization Transparency International has persistently rated Russia one of the most corrupt nations in the world. In the 2009 Corruption Perception Index, Russia was ranked 146th of 180, below countries like Togo, Pakistan and Libya. The United States was ranked 19th.
MOSCOW, September 13 (RIA Novosti)
