MOSCOW. June 20 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Audit Chamber has exposed violations in the use of budget funds allocated for chemical weapons destruction at the facility in the town of Shchuchye, Kurgan region.
"It has been established that misappropriation of budget funds totaling RUB121.6m (USD4.01m) was committed during the construction of the facility," the chamber's information and public relations department told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
Financing of the Shchuchye facility construction was not backed up by an approved feasibility study, expenses not confirmed with documents were covered, materials were procured at too high prices, some works were paid for twice, budgets were overblown, and budget funds totaling RUB46.5m (USD1.53m) were misappropriated, a department official said.
"Construction of some facilities that are 50 to 70 percent ready was suspended due to underfunding, and late mothballing of incomplete facilities made their equipment dysfunctional, so it had to be written off," the official said.
The Audit Chamber found out that "construction of housing in Shchuchye is progressing in accordance with an adjusted project that is more expensive than the original one." In addition, state funds totaling RUB75.1m (USD2.48m) were misappropriated. They were envisioned for the construction of the Shchuchye facility in the state defense order for 2002, but the Russian Ammunition Agency spent them on the Gorny facility in the Saratov region.
The check showed that the Russian Ammunition Agency, being the state customer, paid the general contractor for quality control and technical supervision which was, in fact, performed by the customer itself.
The data was made public at the Audit Chamber Board's Friday session presided by Sergei Stepashin. The session addressed results of the check of the use of federal budget funds allocated in 2002 for the scrapping of chemical weapons at the Shchuchye facility. It also considered the progress in implementation of international agreements concerning the facility. The check took place in April 2003 in accordance with the Audit Chamber's action plan for this year. Auditor Nikolai Loktionov made the report.
Summing up results of the discussion, the board decided to send a note to the Russian Ammunition Agency, demanding the correction of drawbacks and the punishment for guilty officials. An information letter will be sent to the Prosecutor General's Office for considering whether a criminal case is necessary, and another information letter will be sent to the Kurgan region legislature. A report on the results of the check will be submitted to both houses of the Russian parliament.