In the house of the Deputy Minister of Transport of the Samara Region, Sergei Neretin, the security forces conducted searches as part of a criminal case on the fact that the leadership of the regional Ministry of Transport exceeded official powers during the construction of the Klimovsky Bridge (Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). On the same day, the Leninsky District Court convicted Olesya Gladkova, General Director of InfraCap LLC, a contractor for the regional Ministry of Transport. Olesya Gladkova’s company, as established by the investigation, entered fictitious data into the study of traffic flows, which formed the basis for the decision to build the Klimovsky bridge worth 140 million rubles. The security forces assume that the leadership of the Ministry of Transport knew about the fictitiousness of the study.
As part of a criminal case on the fact of exceeding official powers by the leadership of the Ministry of Transport of the Samara Region (Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), employees of the Investigative Committee and the FSB conducted searches on June 13, Tuesday, in the house of Deputy Transport Minister Sergei Neretin in the village. Gorely Khutor in Samara, deputy Alexander Khinshtein said. According to the parliamentarian, the criminal case is connected with embezzlement during the construction of the Klimovsky bridge and the sentence of Olesya Gladkova, General Director of InfraCap LLC, who was found guilty of fraud on June 13 (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced to three years in prison in a general colony. mode. In December 2018, the company signed a contract with the Ministry of Transport for the implementation of research work on the feasibility of concluding a concession agreement “Construction of a bridge across the Volga River with a bypass of the Togliatti urban district and access to the M5 Ural highway.” The contract value was 10 million rubles. The organization was obliged to conduct a survey of traffic flows, however, as investigators found out, no work was carried out.
“The report on the execution of the contract used the results of studies carried out for other purposes by a third-party organization,” the regional prosecutor’s office said. The traffic intensity forecast for the bridge, according to the InfraCapa report, was 39,000 vehicles per day. The indictment stated that a false report could lead to misleading potential investors of the project, shortfall in the estimated profit for investors, as well as direct losses to the Russian Federation.
Klimovsky bridge is part of the international transport route “Europe – Western China”. The concession agreement was signed between the government of the region and Concession Company Bypass Tolyatti JSC on October 16, 2019. The total length of the bridge structure over the Volga will be 3.7 km. The object will have 26 supports, 25 superstructures. The length of the entire new road will be 99 km. As the government of the Samara region reported in May this year, the readiness of the Klimovsky bridge, together with the Tolyatti Bypass highway, is 77%. The bridge should open to traffic in 2024. The total cost of the project is 140 billion rubles. Klimovsky bridge is the second in cost after the Crimean bridge.
According to Alexander Khinshtein, it was Sergey Neretin, Deputy Minister of Transport Ivan Pivkina, head of the Department for Planning and Development of Road Facilities, who signed the acceptance certificate for the work performed by InfraCap. According to the deputy, there was an agreement between Olesya Gladkova and the leadership of the regional Ministry of Transport. “It is obvious, however, that Gladkova did not act alone, but in collusion with the leaders of the Ministry of Transport. It could not be otherwise: the contract was signed with her on December 7, 2018, and the work was already accepted on December 20. That is, the officials obviously knew that all the calculations were fake, and, perhaps, even required the contractor to derive the indicators they needed. The regional authorities defended these drawn figures in front of the federal center, convincing them of the need for a new bridge,” deputy Alexander Khinshtein wrote in his Telegram channel.
At the same time, according to the resolution of the Samara Region, the concessionaire from the regional budget, whose deficit in 2023 amounted to 25 billion rubles, will be paid 61 billion rubles. in 2026-2036. From 2026 to 2029, about 11 billion rubles will be paid annually, then the amount will be reduced every year. In addition, according to Alexander Khinshtein, under the terms of the concession agreement, the regional budget will be obliged to compensate investors for the lack of transport flow. According to a member of the Committee for Construction, Transport and Highways of the Samara Provincial Duma Gennady Govorkov, the facility “as it was built, and will be built.” “Just recently I watched the bridge being built. Construction is in full swing, and it must be brought to its logical end so that people can use the new road, shorten the path and bring the goods to the consumer faster.” Asked how likely it is that the intensity of the bridge will be lower than expected, the deputy suggested not to speculate. “Specialists should agree on this, but in any case, the facility needs to be completed,” Gennady Govorkov emphasized. The deputy refused to comment on criminal cases and searches, noting that it was not in his competence. The editorial office did not receive a comment from the government of the Samara region at the time the issue went to print. The reception of the Ministry of Transport did not answer the call.