President Vladimir Putin signed a set of bills introducing controls on personal spending by government officials. According to the new law, the controls will apply to “purchases of land or other real estate property, vehicles, securities and stocks, if their amount exceeds the income of the purchaser and his or her spouse for the three years immediately preceding the transaction.”

Officials will have to declare not only their own spending, but also the spending of their spouses and underage children. The source of funds for the acquisition of any property will need to be justified. Failing to do so will result in the official being fired and the property confiscated.

The law also introduces criminal liability for failure to pay a fine that is envisaged as the main punishment for officials unable to prove the legality of their property acquisition. Penalties include house arrest or community service, with no jail time stipulated in this case.

The new provisions will go into effect on January 1, 2013, and they will apply to transactions entered into in 2012. When filing tax returns in April 2013, officials will have to declare not only their 2012 income, as usual, but also their expenses during that period.

The new law will apply to parliament deputies, senators, government ministers and regional and municipal officials, as well as to Central Bank and Pension Fund employees. According to Vladimir Vasilyev, deputy Duma speaker and head of the United Russia faction in the Duma, the amendments will affect almost 10 million people.

The government’s representative at federal courts, Mikhail Barshchevsky, estimates that, to control the spending of 10 million officials, the government will need to set up a special department with a staff of at least 300,000 people.

“The number of officials falling under this law should be cut to at least 100,000; the law should apply only to ministers, governors, police chiefs, chief judges and prosecutors,” Barshchevsky told Ekho Moskvy radio.

“If a governor and a vice-governor are not corrupt, they’ll make sure that department heads don’t embezzle money. They won’t allow their subordinates to be stealing and living richer lives than them,” the government representative said.

Barshchevsky also noted that officials already declare their property, along with their incomes. “You can see what property an official has bought in the past year, if you compare their property and income reports for the past two years,” Barshchevsky said.

(Read by Brian Salter. Brian Salter is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)