The Ministry of Digital Development will suspend the issuance of grants for new IT developments until September 1

Mintsifry reported on the suspension until September 1 of the issuance of grants for new developments in the field of IT. Until that time, the agency will update the composition of the grant committee and change the decision-making processes, the press service of the agency said. In addition, it is planned to audit the “purity” of past projects.

Until September 1, the Ministry of Digital Development plans to:

• conduct an “independent assessment of employees” of the Russian Foundation for the Development of Information Technologies, the main operator of grants;
• update the composition of decision-making bodies and the pool of experts evaluating incoming applications;
• conduct an audit of the decisions made on the issuance of grants in 2022–2023. In case of doubt about 100% purity, projects will be canceled;
• optimize decision-making processes to completely exclude the influence of employees of the Ministry of Digital Development and ensure transparency.

In this regard, the department will create a commission headed by the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev. The commission will include representatives of the main associations in the field of IT. Based on the results of the inspection and consideration of complaints, the Ministry of Digital Development will provide the results of the analysis.

The Ministry of Digital Development provides grants for a number of areas in the IT field for the development and implementation of Russian digital solutions: developers – up to 500 million rubles, companies implementing Russian IT solutions – up to 6 billion rubles, start-ups – up to 20 million rubles, companies for the introduction of new digital solutions – up to 700 million rubles.

On July 13, Maxim Parshin, deputy head of the Ministry of Digital Development, was arrested for two months, until September 12, on suspicion of taking a bribe on an especially large scale (part 6 of article 290 of the Criminal Code). State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein reported on his Telegram channel that Mr. Parshin was detained in one of the restaurants while receiving a bribe of 3.5 million rubles. The illegal reward, according to the deputy, was intended for assistance in allocating certain grants. Presumably, the bribe was received from the head of Budget and Financial Technologies LLC (BFT) Alexander Monosov. The prosecutor’s office today, July 17, appealed measure of restraint chosen by the court for Mr. Parshin.

More details – in the material “Kommersant” “Grant fee”.

Lusine Balasyan