The investigation conducted by the public prosecution authorities of Ural Federal District revealed that the local division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state natural resources watchdog) violated the civil service law. Despite the legislation and a number of presidential decrees, Rosprirodnadzor turned out not to be verifying data produced by their job applicants, which means quite a few overall conscientious workers keep violating legal norms and regulations.

The case of Mr. Kiryushkin is but one instance: prior to becoming Deputy Director for Control and Coordination, he was founder and owner of a 50% share holding of TalitskLes Ltd. Apparently, Mr. Kiryushkin concealed this fact when becoming a civil servant in 2000. Mr. A. Kuzmenko, the leading expert of Protected Territories Department, Ms M. Mokhova and Mr. P. Ufimtsev from the Control and Coordination Department were found guilty of the same offenses.

None of these received any response whatsoever from acting Head of Department N. L. Golyshev, who is himself a founder of Transit Ltd.

The federal law, however, says if a civil servant provides inaccurate data related to income and property, he or she cannot keep this job.

The investigation also revealed that there were some offenses connected with new appointments and keeping employees’ records.

Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Russian Federation Yuri Zolotov sent his report to Sergey Sao, Rosprirodnadzor executive, asking him to consider prosecuting Mr. Golyshev and other offenders as well as possibly firing them.