KHABAROVSK. Sept 29 (Interfax-AVN) - Head of the Kremlin administration Sergei Naryshkin has said that Russia will soon take concrete measures to resist corruption.
"This will be primarily the expansion of property control and the expansion of the list of persons subjected to property control," he said in an interview with Russia channel on Sunday.
He said amendments would also be made to the Criminal Proceedings Code and the law on operative activities.
"The new provisions would permit the application of operative measures to track illegally gained property. Besides, a corruption-related abuse could be a reason for severing a contract with a government employee," Naryshkin said.
He added that control over auctions in state property management would be tightened.
"Many corruption-related offenses are committed in managing state property and in procurements for state needs. Therefore the national anti-corruption plan stipulates for advancing legislation in this sphere as well," Naryshkin added.
Asked whether government functions stimulating corruption will be reduced he said: "Generally speaking this is a big problem. Corruption is primarily the consequence of excessive or unregulated state governance, hence the state should be getting rid of redundant functions."
"While at first we identified about 5,600 functions performed by government bodies, in the process of analyzing and streamlining them we left some 3,000. A big number was either omitted or fundamentally reshaped," Naryshkin said. The authorities plant to further reduce these figures through limiting and cutting down the list of operations requiring permits form the state.
As an example Naryshkin cited the travel business in which licensing was replaced by financial liability which brought down the level of corruption significantly.
He said that much is being done to regulate the operations of executive bodies. "In two years some 450 administrative regulations have been developed. The Justice Ministry has approved 200 of them and they are being enforced. This is one direction of our work," he said.
The aim is to have the work of officials regulated, Naryshkin said. "An official should have the right to initiative, of course, but not to the arbitrary interpretation of certain provisions of law," he said.
The national plan of resisting corruption which the president approved last summer is being implemented and a package of legislative initiatives should be tabled to the Duma by October 1, Naryshkin said.
"In this connection a meeting will be held on Tuesday chaired by the president. And if the package is okayed, the bills will be sent to the Duma," he said.