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Moscow mayor pledges to continue fight against corruption

In December 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin established a new anti-corruption department in the presidential administration as part of Russia’s anti-corruption drive

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MOSCOW, February 5. /ITAR-TASS/. Moscow’s authorities will continue to fight corruption, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at a board meeting of the Russian capital’s prosecutor’s office on Wednesday.

“Tens of officials have been detained for bribes in the past few months,” Sobyanin said. “And I must say that this practice of cooperative action with law enforcement agencies and the prosecutor’s office will be continued. We will stop any theft by officials no matter when they started working - five years ago or one,” the mayor added.

According to Sobyanin, the problem of corruption in Moscow cannot be resolved by tough punishment, such as arrests and criminal cases, so the city authorities have also taken other measures against officials in charge of state procurement.

“Some 2,000 officials have had to take a lie detector test for us to know who deals with state procurement. Many of them failed to pass the test,” the mayor said, adding that in 2013, the city saved some 160 billion rubles ($4.6 billion) on state procurement.

Sobyanin said the city authorities, the Accounts Chamber and Moscow’s main control directorate are constantly checking the efficiency of budget spending.

“We file many lawsuits for the sake of recovering illegally spent funds to the city budget. Unfortunately, if there is no voluntary return, the process may drag on for years and does not always bring results. The prosecutor’s office has started actively maintaining our lawsuits and working with such debtors, who, in essence, embezzled budget funds,” the mayor said.

In December 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin established a new anti-corruption department in the presidential administration as part of Russia’s anti-corruption drive.

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