FSB involved in proceedings around municipal assets
The authorities of Chrysostom are plunging into a series of new scandals with, probably, criminal prospects. After a year of litigation and attempts to terminate the contract for the lease of boiler houses with the Teploenergetik company, the mayor’s office unexpectedly abandoned its claims and received a lawsuit itself. Requirements to municipal structures were also presented by the firm “RIKO”, which announced the illegal export of the property of the company by the MBU “Improvement”. Moreover, this episode, according to businessmen, apparently, can be attached to the materials of the criminal case against Vladimir Gorbunov, deputy head of the housing and communal services department. In the meantime, businessmen are talking about possible corruption and see signs of fraudulent activities. At the same time, well-informed observers note that the identified violations in the area of MBU and management are only part of the illustrations of problems in the municipality. Deputies also criticize the work of officials, speaking about conflicts in the road sector, construction and other areas, as well as preparing an appeal to the FSB. Political scientists, however, point to the historical confrontation between business groups and the absence of any understandable alternative from the regional authorities, which would allow leveling mass conflicts in the municipality.
After a year of litigation with Teploenergetik LLC, which heats a third of Zlatoust, municipal officials decided to drop the lawsuit on breaking the lease agreement for boiler houses.
The reason for such actions, according to sources close to the mayor’s office, was the actual impossibility of termination – the contract can be unilaterally terminated if its conditions are not met, that is, the payment schedule is disrupted, and it was observed. At the same time, a notice appeared in the administration about the termination of the lease agreement and the return of boiler houses to the municipality from May 1. In response to this, Teploenergetik filed a lawsuit to declare such actions illegal.
Slag heaps in Zlatoust
The press service of the administration did not comment on the situation during the day. Meanwhile, market participants note that proceedings with Teploenergetik, which owes hundreds of millions to resource suppliers, are far from the only long-term conflict of municipal officials. For example, a dispute with RICO LLC, which owns slag heaps on plots of about 45 hectares, also went to court.
According to company representatives, the slag was received by the mayor’s office back in the 1990s during the bankruptcy of the metallurgical plant and sold to the organization for $12 million. However, the land remained in the ownership of the municipality. In 2021, the head of the Zlatoust property management committee, Elena Turova, decided to transfer one of the sites under the dumps of the MBU “Blagoustroistvo” to gratuitous use for special activities. According to representatives of “RIKO”, this meant “the use of dumps for pouring the city dump, where fires periodically occur.” However, the exported slag, according to the merchants, was not paid for.
“In the administration, our appeals about illegal activities were ignored. We were forced to repeatedly write statements to the police about the illegal export of slag, its actual theft with the participation of MBU “Improvement”. However, the police of Zlatoust transferred our appeal to the investigation, where he was added to the cases on other episodes of theft by other persons, ” – Yevgeny Nabiev, a representative of RICO and Zashchita Legal Agency LLC, told his version of events.
According to the merchants, the slag, the metal content of which reaches 30%, was exported from March to November 2021 and processed at a neighboring site owned by Rucheyok LLC, owned by the deputy head of the Municipal Public Institution “Housing and Communal Services Administration” of Zlatoust Vladimir Gorbunov. After another appeal to the police, a squad came to the place and stopped the export.
“Gorbunov immediately appeared on the dump on a red jaguar and in obscene form began to prove that we were wrong. The contractor hired for the removal and processing of slag, after consulting with lawyers, stopped this activity,” Evgeny Nabiev described the situation.
In total, according to entrepreneurs, about 76 thousand cubic meters of slag were removed from the dumps, for which now RICO is demanding compensation in excess of 35 million rubles in court. In addition, businessmen see signs of possible corruption in the activities of Gorbunov and other employees of the administration, as reported to the FSB, as well as fraud. Let us recall that a criminal case has already been initiated against Gorbunov under Part 6. Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Taking a bribe”). In addition, in March, Artem Nagaev, deputy director of the Municipal Budgetary Institution “Improvement”, was detained on suspicion of fraud. (Part 4, Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Local deputies also criticize the work of officials, talking about a whole list of problems from the lack of clear plans for regasification and repayment of debts for gas to the unprofitability of the city’s auto fleet and only 18 out of 32 buses on the line.
“The administration should have a clear distribution of powers and the selection of qualified leaders. The deputy for construction should be responsible for the construction and reconstruction, and not the directors of schools. This happened to us, for example, with the construction of the Taganay stadium, for which the sports school is responsible. There are also questions about other objects. The municipality received the ownership of the building of the former plant named after Lenin, but within a few months a number of production shops were simply dismantled (including for scrap. – Approx. ed.). The deputy head Zhiganshin and MBU “Improvement” were engaged in this plant. Now we are preparing an appeal on this issue to the FSB,” – said Deputy Viktor Roshchupkin.
Despite a lot of complaints, the deputies recognized the report of the head on the work for the year at the end of March as satisfactory. One of the reasons for such an assessment, according to the ex-head of Zlatoust, deputy Vyacheslav Zhilin, was fears of a reduction in regional support funds otherwise.
The regional authorities, according to observers, were notified about the conflicts taking place in the municipality, but they preferred not to advertise discontent until the last moment. Another drop was a massive accident on the highway near the municipality. During the proceedings, it turned out that the maintenance of the road is not carried out, and half of it was not put on the balance sheet at all. After that, the head of the region gave Pekarsky time to solve this problem until the fall. By the same date, according to political scientists, the adoption of personnel decisions on the management of Zlatoust may be postponed.