MOSCOW, February 7 (Itar-Tass) - The Audit Chamber exposed the misuse of 117 billion roubles in defense spending last year, first deputy chairman of the committee on defense at the State Duma lower house of the Russian parliament Viktor Zavarzin /United Russia faction/ told reporters on Thursday.
Zavarzin made the statement after the committee had a meeting in camera to hear the report by Audit Chamber inspectors Valery Bogomolov and Alexander Piskunov on the check into the use of money allocated for national defense in 2012.
According to the lawmaker, of the 117.487 billion roubles, 114 milion have been recovered and returned to the federal budget. A considerable part of violations in spending some 70 billion roubles occurred as a result of "exceeding the price targets in state contracts.
Member of the house committee on Defense Alexander Tarnayev /Communist faction/ said the new outsourcing system for the army had revealed shortcomings, and that it also showed there were possibilities to cut spending. "One of the ways to cut spending in federal budget 2013-2015 is to economize on payments on state contracts to direct contractors," he said.
"Under the current contract system used by the Defense Ministry, contracts can only be concluded with the only supplier of services who then passes his commitments on state contracts to outsources, thus increasing budget spending. An analysis of the food catering contracts in 2012, which Voyentorg concluded with outsourcers, showed that the difference between its contracts with the Defense Ministry and the contracts with outsourcers reached 672.7 million roubles.
As for the implementation of the state program of armaments, the Audit Chamber found violations in this area as well. A check exposed contractors' low quality work. For example, the Kumertau aircraft production company failed to meet its commitments to supply six helicopters in 2011, in violation of the terms of the state contract.
The Aviaremont company failed to carry out maintenance work on 128 helicopters in 2011, Tarnayev said.
Violations were also exposed during a check into the effectiveness, legitimacy and proper use of budget money in the program of military space systems in 2011.
Due to the poor quality of supplied space equipment, three launches /one in 2009 and two in 2011/ failed; as a result, two spacecraft were put into the wrong orbits, and one was lost. The federal budget spending to purchase the above units made up 1.76 billion roubles in 2009 and 3.79 billion roubles in 2011, the parliamentarian said.
"The total sum of ineffective spending due to the failure to achieve the end result made up 5.5 billion roubles," he summed up.
Meanwhile, military prosecutors on Thursday said they were checking the legality of the sale of several real estate facilities in Yekaterinburg, which had belonged to Voyentorg, an affiliate of Oboronservis.
The facilities were transferred into private ownership in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk; their precise number is unknown," prosecutor of the Central Military District Yevgeny Ivanov told a news conference.
Ivanov said the fight against corruption had stepped up. Military prosecutors opened 187 criminal cases in the Central Military District in 2012, carried out more than 500 checks and disciplined more than 200 officials. The main crimes are bribes, thefts and abuse of office. Military registration and enlistment offices have led other military bodies by crime rate for years, the prosecutor said.