UrBC, Moscow, April 24, 2019. The Russian Accounts Chamber uncovered 9,235 instances of budget funds getting misused in 2018; this was 1.5 times more often than in the year 2017. All the instances in question amounted to RUB 772.7 billion worth of mismanaged funds (nearly twice as little as one year previously), the chamber’s report states.

The chamber’s checks and investigations resulted in forty criminal lawsuits, seventy-eight cases of ongoing operational-investigative activities, and RUB 7.5 billion getting transferred back to the national budget.

Last year, most of the problems had to do with budget implementation (3,784 instances); government-run purchases and purchased made by certain legal entities (2,367); failure to comply with accounting standards and provide proper accounting reports (979); failure to comply with the public property management regulations (528); and inefficient use of federal or other resources (128).

In terms of estimated damage, the two largest offense categories were government-run purchases and purchased made by certain legal entities (RUB 294.6 billion) and budget implementation (RUB 268.2 billion).