Yana Yakovleva: Russia Needs It Own Franklin D. Roosevelt
[Yana Yakovleva is founder of Business Solidarity, a nongovernmental organization that lobbies for legal changes and defends businesspeople against extortion, raiding and false criminal charges initiated by government officials. This comment appeared in Vedomosti.]
There has been a lot of talk lately about forming a partnership between business and government. The idea is that the business community should become a full-fledged partner with the authorities in implementing President Dmitry Medvedev’s plans for modernization.
But what form should such a partnership take? Today, the only partnership between business and government that exists is in the form of corruption. Businesses cannot obtain state contracts, permits or anything else involving interaction with the state without giving bribes or kickbacks.
Consider the case of Oleg Novikov, which is highly representative of what trials and tribulations a small businessperson has to go through to open a simple business. Novikov, a resident of a village in the Vladimir region, wanted to open a carwash and tire-repair business in January 2008.
He first sent a request to the district administration asking for a plot of land. It was granted three months later when the district’s lawmakers gathered and decided on the issue. It took another three months for the state architectural bureau to draw up the site plan, after which it requested that Novikov submit papers justifying the size of the plot of land he wanted.
All of the papers were then sent to the federal Hygiene and Epidemiology Center for review. Novikov received his permit in October 2008. A contract for selecting a plot of land was issued and a commission comprising 12 officials gave its approval for the requested site.
In January 2009, Novikov received a land-use map for a plot measuring 200 square meters — 1,000 square meters less than had been earlier approved. The district’s lawmakers were forced to meet again. Sometime later, officials lost all the documents and the whole thing had to be repeated yet again.
Novikov spent all of 2010 doing pointless bureaucratic drudgery...
Read entire article at Moscow Times
There has been a lot of talk lately about forming a partnership between business and government. The idea is that the business community should become a full-fledged partner with the authorities in implementing President Dmitry Medvedev’s plans for modernization.
But what form should such a partnership take? Today, the only partnership between business and government that exists is in the form of corruption. Businesses cannot obtain state contracts, permits or anything else involving interaction with the state without giving bribes or kickbacks.
Consider the case of Oleg Novikov, which is highly representative of what trials and tribulations a small businessperson has to go through to open a simple business. Novikov, a resident of a village in the Vladimir region, wanted to open a carwash and tire-repair business in January 2008.
He first sent a request to the district administration asking for a plot of land. It was granted three months later when the district’s lawmakers gathered and decided on the issue. It took another three months for the state architectural bureau to draw up the site plan, after which it requested that Novikov submit papers justifying the size of the plot of land he wanted.
All of the papers were then sent to the federal Hygiene and Epidemiology Center for review. Novikov received his permit in October 2008. A contract for selecting a plot of land was issued and a commission comprising 12 officials gave its approval for the requested site.
In January 2009, Novikov received a land-use map for a plot measuring 200 square meters — 1,000 square meters less than had been earlier approved. The district’s lawmakers were forced to meet again. Sometime later, officials lost all the documents and the whole thing had to be repeated yet again.
Novikov spent all of 2010 doing pointless bureaucratic drudgery...