The minister found a way out of the prosecutor’s office

Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Ulyanovsk Region Gulnara Rakhmatulina resigned. The ministry explains this decision by the desire to change jobs. However, earlier the Prosecutor General’s Office drew attention to a dubious contract for the reclamation of a solid waste landfill. According to Kommersant, law enforcement agencies are conducting a pre-investigation check to determine whether there are signs of abuse of power and fraud in the minister’s actions.

The administration of the governor of the Ulyanovsk region told Kommersant that Gulnara Rakhmatulina wrote a letter of resignation on Tuesday of her own free will and, in accordance with it, was fired on December 6. And about. Deputy Minister Natalya Ayukaeva became the head of the regional Ministry of Natural Resources. The governor’s administration and the regional government are not commenting on the resignation; there is no information about candidates for the post of minister yet.

Kommersant was unable to get a comment from Gulnara Rakhmatulina – her phone numbers were unavailable. The ministry said that Ms. Rakhmatulina resigned because she “received an offer for a new job.” Meanwhile, two Kommersant sources close to the regional executive power recalled: on November 17, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov visited Ulyanovsk on a working visit, after which the regional prosecutor’s office and its district divisions initiated more than 40 supervisory inspections. According to Kommersant’s interlocutors, at the same time the prosecutor of the Ulyanovsk region sent a proposal to the regional government with a proposal to consider the issue of dismissing Gulnara Rakhmatulina.

“Apparently, the minister decided to act proactively before it’s too late,” one of the interlocutors suggested in a conversation with Kommersant.

Let us remind you that environmental activists, public inspectors, and the environmental prosecutor’s office have repeatedly reported violations in the activities of the regional Ministry of Natural Resources. Thus, critics reproached the ministry for absence proper supervision of the activities of the “medicinal tinctures” plant in Mullovka, whose waste more than once poisoned fish in local ponds. This year, the Ministry of Natural Resources was criticized for violations during the reclamation of the Vinnovskaya Grove, in particular felling there are 229 trees – the environmental prosecutor’s office confirmed a gross violation of the law.

The most high-profile episode was the deal to reclaim the Krasny Yar MSW landfill in Ulyanovsk. Government contract in the amount of 426.3 million rubles. was concluded with a single supplier, a decision on this was made by a commission of the government of the Ulyanovsk region at the proposal of the regional Ministry of Natural Resources.

Later it turned out that the Ecoinvest company (Moscow), which received a half-billion-dollar contract, was once founded by Gulnara Rakhmatulina, and at the end of 2022, with accounts payable 98 million rubles. had zero revenue, that is, actually did not work. The prosecutor’s office of the Ulyanovsk region filed a claim with the arbitration court, which recognized the contract void. The regional government filed an appeal, but the court of second instance refused to satisfy it.

How reported Kommersant, social activists told Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov about the situation with Krasny Yar during his visit to Ulyanovsk. As the department’s press service reported, “the Prosecutor General has set the task of immediately understanding the situation, including from the point of view of anti-corruption legislation.” According to Kommersant, the police and the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee are currently conducting a pre-investigation investigation into possible abuse of official powers (Part 2 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and fraud committed by a group of persons (Part 2 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

On Wednesday, at a meeting of the regional legislative assembly, Vice Speaker Dmitry Grachev (LDPR) said that “the resignation of the minister is not the degree of responsibility that should be seen.” “We don’t want blood, but when the budget may have suffered a multi-million dollar hit, it is necessary to understand in detail all the actions of the minister,” he said.

Sergey Titov, Ulyanovsk