This author has written several times that Rosoboronpostavka – the Federal Agency for Supplies of Armaments, Military, Special Equipment and Material Resources – is supposed to be key to making the GOZ and GPV work. It’s supposed to take responsibility for negotiating, contracting and taking deliveries out of the hands of military men, so they aren’t tempted by bribes and kickbacks from manufacturers, and can concentrate on the specific requirements for weapons and equipment that needs to be made and bought.
In mid-2010, erstwhile Putin ally Viktor Cherkesov (who once warned of infighting and corruption among high-ranking security service veterans) was unceremoniously booted from Rosoboronpostavka. President Dmitriy Medvedev criticized the agency (and Cherkesov) for not accomplishing much, and he moved it under the Defense Ministry, declaring that it would become a reinvigorated part of the effort to rearm the Armed Forces during the next decade.
Nadezhda Sinikova
With great fanfare, Defense Minister Serdyukov’s confidant, Nadezhda Sinikova took over at Rosoboronpostavka. This all fit pretty well with Serdyukov’s general intent – to establish strict control over the Defense Ministry’s “financial flows,” and to civilianize Defense Ministry functions that aren’t clearly military in nature.
It’s seemed that Sinikova’s Rosoboronpostavka has remained stillborn, much like it was prior to mid-2010. At least, nothing was heard from or about it until a 3 March article in Rosbalt.ru. Now we have to be wary — Cherkesov’s wife, Natalya Chaplina is Rosbalt’s General Director. Be that as it may, the article seems pretty solid.
According to Rosbalt.ru, Rosstat published data on salaries in the federal executive organs, and experts were surprised the highest average paychecks — 135,000 rubles per month or more than 1.6 million rubles per year — are in Rosoboronpostavka, an organization not even really functioning. The average 12-month federal salary is 728,000 rubles, about 60,000 per month.
Rosoboronpostavka is working only in a technical sense. The different power ministries and departments haven’t hurried to hand over authority to conclude contracts for them, and they’ve tried to sabotage the agency’s work, according to Igor Korotchenko.
Rosoboronpostavka’s supposed to have 1,100 professional employees, 980 in the Moscow headquarters. A source close to Rosoboronpostavka claims that, prior to mid-2010, not more than 10 people worked for the agency, and it didn’t have its own office. They worked in a room in Rosoboroneksport on Moscow’s Ozerkovskiy Embankment.
The Rosstat data says Rosoboronpostavka has the lowest staffing level of any executive structure, only 15.5 percent or 152 people against an authorized level of 980.
Before the mid-2010 changes, Rosoboronpostavka salaries had been 50-70,000 per month; the director got 70,000 and he reported to Prime Minister Putin. Now, with its status downgraded and reporting to the Defense Minister, the agency’s pay has increased several times.
Experts think the pay’s kept high because the country’s leadership wants to deter corruption in the state defense order (GOZ), but deputy editor-in-chief the journal “Armaments and Economics,” Professor Sergey Vikulov says this high pay comes “from the naive belief of our leaders that high pay will deter bureaucrats from bribery.”
One notes Vikulov’s journal is the professional publication of the 46th TsNII, not exactly an objective voice since it used to form the GOZ (and probably collect the bribes) pretty autonomously before Rosoboronpostavka was established.
Korotchenko believes even bureaucrats who earn millions will be tempted to “saw off” part of the billion-ruble contracts they oversee. He goes on to say corruption in the Defense Ministry directorates occupied with the GOZ and the OPK already caused the failure of the two previous state programs of armaments (GPVs).
Rosbalt.ru also claims the Audit Chamber has said GOZ-2009 was only 50 percent completed. Then it cites NG‘s (Mukhin’s) 70 percent fulfillment figure for GOZ-2010.
Although one expert hopes higher pay at the agency is tied to greater productivity in processing contracts, a Rosbalt.ru source says as before only a small number of contracts are being completed. The expert is just about ready to give up searching for a logical explanation for the lack of elementary order in Russia’s management structures.
But Korotchenko thinks it might be early to judge Rosoboronpostavka, since it’s still establishing itself. Perhaps at the end of this year or the beginning of next, it will take over all power ministry arms and equipment procurement contracting, he says.
Russian Defense Policy 