Photo: Ukrinform
Paradoxically, Russia, where the proportion of legal and hidden unemployment among the population is quite significant (the number of unemployed in the country at the end of 2003 was 8.4% of the economically active population, while the number of officially registered unemployed was 2.2%), today feels an acute shortage of labor. There are several factors: the notorious brain drain (over recent years, about 200,000-250,000 qualified specialists have left Russia), an educational imbalance that has arisen, and the growth of the real sector of the economy, requiring a skilled workforce. This especially applies to such rapidly developing production industries as fuel, metallurgy, and machine building. So without an influx of "fresh blood" into the Russian markets, talking about doubling the GDP is simply ridiculous - this is recognized today by all interested government agencies and large companies. Accordingly, the task is also set: to create a transparent and simple mechanism for attracting highly qualified personnel to the country.
It was for this purpose that the Federal Migration Service was transferred to the structure of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in February 2002. Moreover, in the summer of 2003, the authorities launched a new system for accounting for foreign labor resources. This refers to "labor plastic" - a plastic card that allows its holder to work in Russia. The mechanism began to work briskly and... became mired in a resounding corruption scandal. Employees of the Federal Migration Service of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs were caught in large-scale extortion. In the near future, the investigation will have to establish how long this mechanism worked and what dividends it brought to its creators. Greed and impudence let the officials down. For the "right to work" they demanded a bribe from a world-famous person - football coach Nevio Scala, invited to revive the former glory of Moscow's "Spartak".
$400 - that is exactly how much Yuri Prokofiev, deputy head of the external labor migration department, asked from Spartak representatives for his services. For this ridiculous sum, the official promised to speed up the processing of documents granting the world-famous Italian Nevio Scala and three of his compatriots the right to work in Russia. In other words, for each "head" valued on the world market at hundreds of thousands of dollars, the FMS representative asked for only one hundred conventional units - the same amount he took for an ordinary Turkish builder or a specialist in setting up printing equipment from Finland.
However, Spartak's representatives decided not to pay, turning to the Main Directorate of Internal Security of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (GUSB). Its employees detained the group of extortionists red-handed. True, GUSB operatives say that the operation was the logical finale of a virtuoso undercover development lasting several months. It all started with receiving information that within the walls of the external labor migration department of the FMS, a well-functioning system of administrative racketeering was operating. The court authorized secret video recording and a number of other special measures. As a result, hidden video cameras were installed in the offices of the suspects.
GUSB operatives claim that envelopes were brought to the deputy head of the department almost every day. The mechanism of the bribe-takers' actions was simple and effective. As in many other permit structures, there was a client queue in the external labor migration department. Naturally, people who solved the problem of speeding up a signature for $100 told their less fortunate colleagues whom and how much to bring. Since in most cases, processing the employment of foreign specialists is handled by firms specializing in this, they pre-included the costs of bribes to officials in their price lists. As GUSB employees said, the money was mainly received by inspectors, who so far are passing through the case as witnesses. After the end of the working day, the head of the department and his deputy went around their subordinates and received from each an envelope with unearned income, which was divided equally. By the most conservative estimates, the monthly income of the corrupt officials was about $100,000. GUSB employees do not rule out that part of this amount was sent to higher patrons in the central apparatus of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. At least, according to information from "Itogi", more than 50 searches have already been conducted as part of the investigation of the criminal case on bribery in the FMS. It is quite possible that charges will be brought against several more officials of this department in the very near future.
It was exclusively the integrity of Spartak's lawyers, who agreed to write a statement about bribery, that made it possible to use the operational information collected over several months. If this had not happened, the machine of administrative racketeering would be working today - despite the fact that the operatives knew everything about the extortion scheme in the FMS.
"This event has cast a stain on our service," said the deputy head of the FMS of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, police colonel Mikhail Kravchenko. "We are intolerant of corruption, let alone the construction of permanently operating schemes of state racketeering. The leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had information for quite some time that not everything was in order in the external labor migration department of the FMS, but facts were obtained only now. For us, this is an extremely painful but necessary procedure of self-purification. It is impossible to talk about any consequences of the operation yet - global personnel reshuffles, changes in the document processing procedure. It is impossible and wrong to judge the entire service as a whole by a few people. Speaking in medical language, in this service we had a malignant tumor that was removed in time."
Any Russian employer knows that inviting a citizen of another state with his subsequent employment is connected with a mass of formalities. First, you need to obtain permission to invite a foreign specialist - include him in the so-called quota. To do this, you need to submit an application to the Ministry of Labor (now already former), which checked the legitimacy of inviting a foreigner: what if Russia has specialists of the same qualification? In this case, preference was given to compatriots. Then FMS officials coordinate the issue with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and prepare a consolidated quota list, which is signed by the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation. Last year, for example, work in Moscow under the labor quota was available to 90 thousand foreigners. This was preceded by a meeting of the interdepartmental commission, at which all interested employers made applications for foreign specialists. Based on these data, the quota was approved. For example, Mosgortrans requested permission to attract 10 thousand citizens from Moldova and Ukraine - Muscovites do not want to work as bus or trolleybus drivers.
Then similar resolutions are issued by the administration of the subject of the Federation. They are already more detailed: they indicate not only the number of invited citizens, but also their qualifications, residential address and place of future work. For example, in the corresponding resolution of the Moscow government, the following appear side by side: one citizen of the Republic of Ghana, who was invited to work at the football club "Lokomotiv", four specialists from Moldova, who were invited to work by "PBOYUL Kacharyan", six citizens of Slovenia for work at the construction company "Enka", 127 citizens of Turkey, four citizens of Yugoslavia and another 89,858 people who will work at construction sites, printing plants, markets, in "ambulance", housing offices, institutes and design bureaus of Moscow. The full text of the resolution takes 180 typewritten pages...
Quotas for 2004 were determined by Russian Government Resolution No. 658 of November 3, 2003: Russia invites 213 thousand foreign specialists to work.
When an enterprise is included in this list, the procedure for inviting a specialist can begin. To do this, you will again have to go to the territorial employment center, then to the department of the Federal State Employment Service. The formal time limits for consideration are established by the Federal Law "On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens in the Russian Federation" of July 25, 2002, and amount to 45 days. In practice, however, these time limits are universally violated and actually amount to two or three months. Sometimes you can wait six months for a permit.
- We wanted to hire two Chinese citizens as head chefs of a Chinese restaurant at our branch on Kashirskoye Shosse, - says Yevgeny Kholmov, head of the HR department at Crocus City. - In late November of last year, we gathered all the documents, received a conclusion on the advisability of attracting these citizens to these positions, and began to wait. Only on January 18 did they go to Mr. Kravchenko, deputy head of the FMS of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for signature. It is now already mid-March, and we still have no answer, neither positive nor negative. Naturally, we are suffering losses and losing clients.
Entrepreneurs, of course, are interested in the applicant starting work as soon as possible. The way to speed up the process is everywhere the same - to "thank" an official. "If you spend even a month on each agency, it will take almost six months, and time is money," said the head of one corporation that employs several foreign specialists. "Moreover, you have to pay such an employee immediately after the contract is signed, although this is illegal - first you need to comply with all formalities and only then hire a specialist. But if we are talking about a highly qualified and sought-after specialist, you need to buy him quickly, which means that he initially begins his career in Russia not entirely legally."
Cases where permission to attract a foreign specialist was obtained faster than in a month can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Moreover, do not forget that next year the whole procedure will have to be done again. For example, in the capital's ambulance service, several dozen drivers have been working for more than a year, and every year permits are issued for them anew. A similar situation is developing everywhere - foreign specialists work in Russia for several years in a row.
An employee of one of the major Moscow law firms specializing in registering foreign citizens for work in Russia told Itogi that the migration law itself is optimal and it is hardly possible to speak of its "bribery capacity": "The problem is that several agencies are involved in processing migration documents. Although the same specialists from the former Ministry of Labor were simply unable to verify how much people in professions such as football coaches or top managers of oil companies are really in demand in Russia today. And the functions of employment center clerks are reduced to mechanically checking the correctness of documents. The situation is much more complicated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where three departments deal with the situation of foreign specialists at once - the FMS itself, the Migration Affairs Department of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate, as well as the passport and visa service (formerly the Department of Visas and Registrations), which issues work invitations for foreigners. It is at this stage that the most favorable field for bribery lies. The main motivating reason for giving bribes is the time limits for processing documents, which are artificially dragged out. Anyone who has gone through this whole chain knows that comparing it to the circles of hell will be very mild."
The final permission to work in the form of a special plastic card is issued by the Migration Department of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the federal subject. The head of such a department of the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate, police colonel Anatoly Baturkin, explained the procedure for hiring foreigners:
- If, for example, a citizen from neighboring countries is hired, then I personally issue the permission. If a foreigner from far away, say Italy or Germany, is hired, then we send the materials to the Federal Migration Service, where the correctness of document processing is checked and permission is issued. Only after that does the worker come to us, and we give him official permission to work. Usually these procedures take two to three months, and this is primarily due to the shortage of staff in our services. But we all want everything to be fast. It is on this basis that corrupt officials and dishonest bureaucrats grow. My opinion is this: to avoid cases of corruption, it is necessary to simplify the procedure for registering foreigners for work. For example, Belarusians work with us on the basis of a joint interdepartmental agreement. Let's adopt the experience of foreign colleagues, where the procedure for registering foreigners is much simpler than in Russia, then we will be able to avoid bribery.
Grigory SANIN,
Stepan KRIVOSHEEV,
Igor NADEZHDIN.