Personnel purges have begun in regional funds for the protection of the rights of equity holders. However, it seems that the demonstrative fight against corruption is actually intended to cover up a more global process, namely, the struggle for power and cash flows in the Territorial Development Fund, headed by Sergey Stepashin’s infamous protégé Konstantin Tsitsin.
The Territorial Development Fund was created on the basis of the Housing and Utilities Reform Assistance Fund and the Fund for the Protection of Shareholders’ Rights.
Konstantin Tsitsin, about whose dubious activities Nasha Versiya has already reported more than once, just headed the first of the united organizations. The second was led by Konstantin Timofeev, a protege of Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin. The fact that the new structure was headed by Konstantin Tsitsin, who is a creature of Sergei Stepashin, was called by the vast majority of market analysts the first and biggest defeat of Marat Khusnullin.
Stepashin himself headed the board of trustees of the new organization. However, the new fund did not become his unconditional patrimony. Konstantin Timofeev, who was left without a job, joined the Supervisory Board, and also took the place of Managing Director. Formally, he was entrusted with an important mission – to monitor the spending of the fund. However, less than three months later, law enforcement agencies decided to control the spending of funds in regional funds for the protection of the rights of interest holders – units that were once entrusted to Mr. Timofeev. The results of these checks are obviously disappointing for him.
At once, two former top managers of the Fund for Assistance to Deceived Interest-holders of the Leningrad Region – General Director Alexander Gorshenev and Deputy Head of the Fund Denis Chibisov – recently ended up in a pre-trial detention center by a court decision. They are accused of embezzlement and commercial bribery. According to investigators, the fund deliberately entered into contracts for the completion of houses at a deliberately inflated cost. According to Kommersant, in 2020-2021, 1.9 billion rubles were allocated from the budget of the Leningrad Region for the completion of problematic facilities. Of this money, 100 million rubles were to be spent on the preparation of design and survey documentation. However, in reality, only 36 million rubles were spent on it. The investigation is also studying other episodes related to the construction of facilities in which the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Shareholders acted as a developer.
This story could have been completely ignored: in fact, we have few cases of corruption on the ground. But here’s what’s interesting: right at the time of the investigation and detention of Denis Chibisov at Pulkovo Airport, the newly-minted managing director of the Territorial Development Fund, Konstantin Timofeev, hastily arrived in the region. The official reason for the visit is a working trip to the region and inspection of problematic objects.
Meanwhile, according to information in the telegram channels, the real reason for Mr. Timofeev’s visit to the Leningrad Region could be precisely the investigation of the dark affairs of the leadership of the regional fund of shareholders. An indirect confirmation of this version can be the fact that the activities of Konstantin Timofeev and his style of work in the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Shareholders have more than once raised questions both among the equity holders themselves and among representatives of some regional authorities.
So, even the appointment of Konstantin Timofeev to the post of head of the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Shareholders in 2020 caused a lot of talk. As the activists of the group of deceived equity holders of the Tsaritsyno residential complex calculated then, during the time Mr. Timofeev worked at Moskomstroyinvest, 35 new long-term construction projects appeared in the city. “In the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation under the personal control of Bastrykin A.I. in 2017, criminal case No. 11802007706000067 was initiated against the chairman of Moskomstroyinvest Timofeev K.P. The reasons for the case were poor-quality control over the activities of the developer and misuse of funds from equity holders,” the activists noted.
However, given that Mr. Timofeev’s unspoken patron is Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin (the officials have known each other since their student days at the Kazan Financial and Economic Institute), the hype with the criminal case was quickly hushed up. Later, Baza noted that when concluding contracts, the fund prefers the procurement form “from a single supplier”. This method allows not to hold a tender, and also not to disclose contractors. Although here, too, Mr. Timofeev became only a continuer of a tradition that had already begun before him: this style of work was preferred in the foundation from the day it was founded. In total, according to Baza, contracts worth 37 billion rubles were signed under this scheme. Most of the transactions concerned the construction of houses.
What is interesting: in the year and a half that Konstantin Timofeev was in charge of the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Shareholders, their number did not decrease at all – as it was about 200 thousand, it remained. And this despite the fact that in high offices for several years now they have not been tired of setting a date when the problem of equity holders will have to disappear once and for all. The next such deadline in February was announced by Timofeev’s “curator” Marat Khusnullin – 2024.
Whether it can be done is another big question. The State Duma, for example, is already predicting the emergence of new equity holders. “In the near future, we may have several problematic facilities being built on escrow. Already, about 15% is in the “red zone”, and this can become a colossal burden for builders,” said Sergei Pakhomov, chairman of the Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services.
The current open confrontation Timofeev – Tsitsin, quite possibly, will put an end to the career of one of them. However, it is hardly worth counting on the fact that the winner will suddenly begin to help equity holders or seriously engage in the resettlement of emergency housing.
However, things are not going well for Stepashin and Tsitsin, who won this apparatus war. And this circumstance may well become a trump card in the hands of the same Khusnullin – Timofeev in case of a possible revenge.
It is significant that Konstantin Tsitsin made one of his first working trips in his new position to the Saratov region. Moreover, he arrived there together with Sergei Stepashin. For the official who has been in charge of the implementation of the overhaul program in recent years, the trip looks more than symbolic. In the spring, a regional capital repair fund in the Saratov region became famous for the fact that irate residents filed a bankruptcy lawsuit. The amount of claims is 2.8 million rubles. This is how much the residents of the house on Vishnevaya Street estimated the damage from poor-quality repair of the roof. But what is interesting: for some reason it was not possible to hush up the scandal. Even the regional Ministry of Construction has already joined the case, promising residents to reimburse everything. At the same time, according to information from regional media, contractors also have claims against the Saratov overhaul fund, which flooded the fund with claims demanding payment of money for the work performed.
During a working trip, Stepashin began to scold regional officials. “The worse the overhaul is, the more emergency housing we have. Therefore, special attention should be paid to this issue,” Sergei Stepashin said. However, statements alone will obviously not be able to correct the shortcomings of the overhaul fund that have accumulated over the years and the actually failed program for the resettlement of dilapidated housing. Apparently, this is precisely why Stepashin and Tsitsin, during their trips to the regions, in addition to loud statements for self-promotion, did not forget to enlist the support of large lobbyists from resource-supplying organizations.
So, in the same Saratov region, an application for receiving 840 million rubles to the Housing and Utilities Fund was once submitted by the regional branch of PJSC T Plus, controlled by Viktor Vekselberg. The money is needed to decommission CHPP-1. Also, the regional authorities plan to submit two more applications for a total amount of 1.8 billion rubles for the reconstruction of heating network facilities. These networks are operated by the same T Plus.
It is noteworthy that to date, neither the failure of the program for the overhaul and resettlement of dilapidated housing, supervised by Konstantin Tsitsin, nor the dubious machinations with solving the problems of equity holders, which Konstantin Timofeev was involved in, have not become the subject of law enforcement proceedings. The current open confrontation Timofeev – Tsitsin, quite possibly, will put an end to the career of one of them. However, it is hardly worth counting on the fact that the winner will suddenly begin to help equity holders or seriously engage in the resettlement of emergency housing.
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