Will the accession of Rosseti to FGC UES allow the head of the state corporation, Pavel Livinsky, and his colleagues, Andrey Ryumin and Andrey Murov, to avoid responsibility for “old sins”?
State Corporation “Rosseti” and its child structure FGC UES announced a merger on the basis of the latter. The head of the new formation will be the head of Rosseti Andrey Ryumin. Specific goals were not announced. In fact, the main beneficiaries of this deal could be individuals. The correspondent understood the situation The Moscow Post.
The most scandalous state corporation?
Both Rosseti and FGC UES have long been overgrown with a huge number of scandalous stories, mainly related to corruption. According to information “Versions”in Rosseti, during the leadership of Andrei Ryumin, a whole network was established to collect fees and kickbacks from unscrupulous contractors who hand over objects with gross deviations from technical specifications.
The result of such activities may have been, among other things, a huge devastating fire in the Krasnoyarsk Territory this spring. Forest tracts burned out and thousands of people were left homeless. The fire started from power lines. Experts say that this can happen if they are worn out or if they are installed in violation of the rules.
As for the financial well-being of Rosseti, it is based, among other things, on outstanding debt obligations to suppliers. The story in the Kursk region is indicative, where the subsidiary company Rosseti Center, having received the funds in full, keeps them on its accounts, and pays them much later than the due date, and not yet in full. The parties resolve issues in court, cases are dragged out, money is “hanging in the air”, and the Rosseti structure continues to receive services that are actually unpaid.
And contractors even have nowhere to go, because Rosseti is a state corporation and practically a monopolist in the market, which sometimes has nothing else to offer suppliers. And this is the situation in almost every region of Russia.
Only one subsidiary of Rosseti is the defendant in cases for 33 billion rubles. Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
All in the house
Now, as a result of shelling in the border areas of the Kursk region, electrical networks have been damaged, for the restoration of which Rosseti wants about two million rubles. At the same time, the “daughter” of the corporation operating in the region does not pay its bills to Kursk Electric Networks on time, as a result of which the authorities simply do not have reserves from which to take this amount.
There is reason to believe that the network giant simply wants to take over the Kursk company, and the authorities are somehow weakly resisting this. Do not want to quarrel with the giant or have their own monetary interest in what is happening?
Back at the end of last year, when the topic of market consolidation was actively discussed (when small electric grid companies are driven one size fits all, in case of refusal to comply with strict conditions, they turn into subsidiaries of large operators – the same Rosseti), “Kommersant” wrote that what is happening increases the risk of tariff growth. And not just like that. As we can see, this is similar to the monopolization of the market, and the monopolist can afford to manipulate prices as he pleases. Therefore, there is a restraining mechanism – the antimonopoly service. But “Rosseti”, apparently, the FAS is not written.
Pyramid of criminal cases
An unpleasant situation was in the “Rosseti Kuban”. Law enforcement agencies found that in the course of the execution of a contract concluded in 2016 with a contractor for the repair of overhead power lines, the contractor transferred 1.2 million rubles to the account of a one-day firm. Moreover, the then deputy head of the Rosseti subsidiary, Maxim Shchepakin, proposed an agreement not to initiate a criminal case. This was reported “Kommersant”. How are issues resolved in Rosseti?
During the construction of the Gazprom Arena stadium in St. Petersburg, funds in excess of 300 million rubles were stolen by overstating the cost of contracts for the purchase of cables. According to the investigation, “unidentified officials of Lenenergo” were also involved, wrote “Interfax”. This, by the way, was during the period of Lenenergo’s leadership by Ryumin.
The security forces are already coming to the heads of Rosseti’s subsidiaries as if they were at home. And the amounts for which the state corporations are stealing are not even hundreds of millions, but billions. Magomed Kaitov, ex-head of IDGC of the North Caucasus alone, is charged with fraud in the amount of almost 3.5 billion rubles – reported “Version”.
The cosmic scale of public money poured into a corporation on the example of one subsidiary. Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
Livinsky and his brave team
All the corruption scandals that we are talking about, and the rest, occur and have occurred both under the current head of Rosseti and under the past – Pavel Livinsky, which is now responsible for the energy sector in the government apparatus. The editors of The Moscow Post even released an article called “Nothing new in Rosseti: Ryumin “in the footsteps” of Livinsky?”. The investigation was inspired by another series of arrests of the top management of the state corporation, who worked in the company under both Livinsky and Ryumin. And the name of the investigation most clearly reflects the essence of how Rosseti lives.
Livinsky and Ryumin worked together at the United Energy Company. When the former headed Rosseti in 2017, Ryumin almost immediately took the post of head of Rosseti Lenenergo (former PJSC Lenenergo). In fact, his further career suggests that Ryumin is the essence of Livinsky’s creature. He did not conduct any global purges when he took office. For the sake of “tick”, apparently, he conducted a certain audit of the activities of his predecessor, which, by the way, also allocated a considerable amount from the company’s budget, and, naturally, found that Livinsky was clean as a glass.
Does this mean that the subsequent detentions of top management are completely on your shoulders, Mr. Ryumin?
By the way, Ryumin at one time had a joint business with an “authoritative” Moscow developer Pavel Cho (owner Capital Group, which is very favored by the Moscow real estate market, many companies get excellent plots of the capital’s territories). Ryumin may still be interested in partnering with Cho – we covered in detail this story. The question is, does the multifaceted Ryumin have enough time, among other things, to manage a state corporation?
Pavel Te. A photo: Capital group
As for the second side of the deal with the merger of FGC UES, in general, an asset with a previously rather separate management has also found itself at the center of high-profile corruption scandals more than once. The companies were given to maintain the main electrical networks. It was headed by the son of the former head of the FSO Evgenia Murova Andrey Murov.
One of the most high-profile was the detention in 2020 for a bribe of around 100 million rubles of the development director of the “daughter” of FGC UES, the company “MES North-West” Yuri Derevenchuk.
Everything is thought out
It must be said that Livinsky made sure in advance that the accession discussed today would go as smoothly as possible. Back in 2020, shortly before leaving the post of head of the state corporation, Livinsky transferred to Rosseti the functions of a single executive body of FGC UES. At the same time, Murov was transferred to the position of executive director of Rosseti.
Now it is not clear what will happen next with the former head of FGC UES. There is an opinion that the absorption of this company by Rosseti is a sign of far from friendly disposition towards Murov. On the other hand, if he has not yet been “thrown out” of the company, or at least not transferred to a lower position, then all the beneficiaries of this story are most likely, in principle, full and satisfied. Murov may remain in the position of Ryumin’s “right hand”. Both are possibly just puppets of Livinsky.
Thus, the previous head of Rosseti can be the initiator of all that is happening, and all this is possible with the sole purpose of hiding and hushing up all the corruption cases of his creatures in companies and starting everything from scratch. Although from this side, in fact, it is unlikely that anything will change. All major officials who previously worked in Rosseti and FGC UES remain in their places, it’s just that it’s much more difficult for the security forces to dig under them now.
It is worth noting here that rumors have already spread around the market that Rosseti shares are worth more than the price at which they are offered to buy. Thus, the minority shareholders of the enterprise can simply remain “in a puddle.” The shares will be taken at a low rate and they will not earn anything. But who thinks about minority shareholders when such things are at stake?
moscow-post.su