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Kremlin chief of staff supports call for anti-corruption map in Russia

Sergei Ivanov stressed that when drawing up the map “it is necessary to use only objective criteria”

MOSCOW, September 20 (Itar-Tass) —— Presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov supported entrepreneurs’ proposal to draw up an anti-corruption map in Russia.

The proposal was put forth by Alexander Shokhin, president of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. “This is an interesting idea because Russia is a big country and the situation varies from region to region. There are leaders and there are outsiders,” Ivanov said.

He believes that if such a map is drawn up, “governors will have to react to it”.

At the same time, he stressed that when drawing up the map “it is necessary to use only objective criteria”. “One has to measure twice before coming up with charges against anyone,” he said.

Shokhin said major business associations of Russia would sign an anti-corruption charter and adopt a roadmap to it at the upcoming investment forum in Sochi on Friday, September 21.

Russia has adopted a national anti-corruption strategy and a national anti-corruption plan, and the Federal Law “On Combating Corruption”.

Multiple fines for corruption offences have been introduced and mediation in the act of bribery has been criminalised.

Ivanov’s predecessor in this post, Sergei Naryshkin, earlier called for a comprehensive and systemic fight against corruption. “A strategic task is to eliminate conditions and prerequisites for corruption, make public contracts and tenders transparent, remove unnecessary bureaucratic barriers, and strictly regulate all administrative decisions,” he said.

Naryshkin expressed confidence that these steps “will make anti-corruption measures more effective and provide yet another evidence of Russia's confident movement towards a truly rule-of-law democratic state”.

He admitted earlier that the rate of corruption in Russian society was high but not pandemic.

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