Penza, 26 March 2015. PenzaNews. Ex-minister of Investment Development and Business of the Penza region Alexei Kostin, no deputy minister, head of Business Development Department of the Ministry of Industry of the region, has been fined based on the results of a prosecutor audit.

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The audit has revealed violations during the state program “Development of investment potential, activity, and business in the Penza region in 2014-2020.”

“In particular, he violated the conditions of providing first-payment subsidies to businesses who leased equipment, subsided certain subjects without required paperwork, and provided less money than he should. Moreover, the ministry was found to have been in violation of SME support receivers registry: the registry was not published online,” Yulia Makarova, Senior Assistant Attorney in the Penza region in Media Relations, informed PenzaNews agency.

After the audit, she added, the then head of the ministry became the defendant in two cases under part 1, Art. 15.15.15 of the Administrative Code, titled “Violation of conditions for providing subsidies.”

“Based on the review of one of the cases, the Ministry of Finances of the Penza region has fined the then minister 10,000 rubles. The second case is currently under review,” the speaker said.

According to Yulia Makarova, the minister’s aide who was responsible for publishing the registry online was fined 3,000 rubles under Part 2, Art. 13.27 of the Administrative Code, titled “Violation of requirements to allow access to results of activities of government bodies and local government entities and publish them on the Internet.”

“Moreover, the deputy chairman of the Penza region governor was presented with a remedial action order that was followed by measures to prevent such violations from occurring again,” said the Senior Assistant Attorney in the region.

Based on the information revealed by the audit, she explained, government bodies of the Bessonov, Vadinsk, Issa, Neverkino, Nizhny Lomov, Penza, Sosnovoborsk, Spassk, Tamala and Shemysheika areas had no means to forecast SME development, analyze related information, and at times failed to provide support measures for small and medium enterprises.

“The municipal administrations of Vadinsk, Penza and Shemysheika areas failed to develop and approve programs and other municipal measures aimed at SMEs. The related program measures were not held in the Kamenka, Lopatino and Spassk areas. The main reason for that is lack of required budget funds. Moreover, the prosecutor of the Kuznetsk area has appealed the legislation that illegally restricted SMEs’ rights to conduct business in retail and wholesale, construction, provision of standard, medical and other services, procurement of material support, and that contained additional measures usable to refuse support that are not provided for by the current legislation,” the speaker explained.

The prosecution audit, Yulia Makarova explained, revealed 683 violations, resulting in 234 remedial orders, 61 legislation appeals, 10 administrative cases, and 12 court requests.