MOSCOW. Jan 25 (Interfax) - The Russian government has ordered the Treasury to look into the contract for the construction of the launch site for Angara rockets at Vostochny Cosmodrome.
The order, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, has been published on the official legal information portal.
According to the document, the Treasury needs to "ensure probes into information on the deadlines for the supply of goods (performance of work, provision of services) and the amount of goods (volume of work, services) contained in the document that confirm the contractors' financial obligations."
Roscosmos, in turn, is to ensure the inclusion in the state contracts of conditions on the organization of these probes by the territorial body of the Russian Treasury.
"The state corporation Roscosmos, in collaboration with the Russian Finance Ministry and the Federal Treasury, has drafted a regulation of the Government of the Russian Federation envisaging additional control over the already envisaged treasury support of the funding provided for these purposes," Roscosmos said in a report.
The state corporation said the purpose of the extra control measures is to "ensure the proper and effective use of federal budget funds in the state contract for the construction of the Angara launch site at Vostochny Cosmodrome."
Vostochny is the youngest cosmodrome in Russia, which performed its inaugural launch in 2016. A total of five Soyuz rockets have been launched to date. The second stage of construction is underway to launch Angara rockets.
Yevgeny Rogoza, the head of the state corporation's directorate on the construction of the cosmodrome, said in 2019 that the value of the contract for the design and construction of the second stage of the cosmodrome with production-construction association Kazan had reached 38 billion rubles.
Andrei Okhlopkov, general director of the Center for Operation of Space Ground-based Infrastructure (TsENKI), which is in charge of the construction of Vostochny Cosmodrome, was dismissed from his post in November. Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin said the reason for this was failure to complete work on the cosmodrome on time.
Ruslan Mukhamedzhanov, director of the Barmin Research Institute of Launch Complexes, a branch of TsENKI, was appointed general director.
Okhlopkov and Vladimir Zhuk, chief engineer at TsENKI, were reprimanded following a production meeting at Vostochny Cosmodrome in October. Rogoza, head of the cosmodrome's directorate, was fired following that meeting.
Zhuk was arrested on suspicion of abuse in the construction of the cosmodrome on November 25. In October, it was reported that Roman Bobkov, director of the Vostochny space center, had been arrested for two months. He was implicated in a criminal case that also involves Dmitry Fomintsev, chief inspector of Department 119 of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Directorate on Supervision in Construction. Both men are charged with illegal schemes concerning putting into operation three water-intake facilities at Vostochny Cosmodrome.