Decreasing corruption in Russia
In the last year or so, Dmitry Medvedev, the President of the Russian Federation, has begun to make a special effort to strengthen the rule of law and property rights in Russia. Medvedev is well aware of the fact that Russia's economic success is as dependent on honest, law abiding citizens as it is on resources or technology. While great strides have been made in this area, President Medvedev has himself noted that a culture of “legal nihilism” still exists in Russia, and even conceded that some government jobs can be bought. This mentality must be overcome for Russia to be successful as a country.
One ray of hope for Russia is the the National Anti-Corruption
Committee. The committee is a nongovernmental organization whose purpose
is to investigate state corruption. Kirill Kabanov, the head of the
committee, describes some of the corruption that they have already
uncovered. Kabanov explains how Russia's previous president Vladimir
Putin admitted at the end of his eighth year in office that corruption
was affecting and damaging all levels of the government. Since then, the
committee has investigated and made public statistics about how much
money various Russian corporations have stolen from state and foreign
banks. They found that in 2003, in Moscow alone, banks laundered $100
million dollars a day. The committee uncovered the names of high ranking
Russian officials who were stealing money. One of them was the minister
of Atomic Energy, Yevgeny Adamov. Adamov stole millions of dollars of
federal money, and despite prosecution, still remains a free man.
The United States should make an extra effort to support Russia in their efforts to crack down on corruption. One way that the U.S. can do this is to support those companies that do abide by the law. For instance, as it stands right now, Russian banks are not given access to the U.S. market. Several Russian banks have even applied for permission to open offices in the U.S., but their applications have all been denied. This is because there is a lot of concern about the safety of Russian banks, since many are often involved in illicit activities. However, there are a growing number of legitimate financial institutions in the country, and when a financial institutions proves its trustworthiness, it should be allowed to have the access to U.S. markets that other foreign banks do.