One more Russian oligarch on the way to prison

Russian Auditing Chamber has submitted the letter on the wrongdoings in budget execution at Chukotka region of Russia where oligarch Roman Abramovich is the governor. 
Previously, Russian press reported that the Auditing Chamber revealed financial wrongdoings by Chukotka authorities at the sum of 1.5 billion roubles.($50 million).

There are such wrongdoings as the use of 547 million roubles for wrong purposes and illegal use of 748 million roubles.

In the mid-90s Chukotka was authorized to use the money earned by selling 15.8 tons of gold at $190 million as credit, for its own purposes. In 2004 the region still has the debt of $190.

All the operation on the ‘gold credit” were not registered in the state budget in violation of law. In addition, the authorities of Chukotka did not use the opportunity to restructure the debt on this credit given to them in 2002.

Mr. Sergey Ryabukhin, the Head of the Commission auditing the budget of Chukotka, said that is a bankrupt region. Chuikotka’s annual revenue is 3.9 billion roubles, the state budget provides 3 billion of financial aid every year. Meanwhile, currently Chukotka owes 9.3 billion to the state budget. “Chukotka’s debt is 2.5 times bigger than its annual income”, said the auditor.
 
Head of Russian Auditing Chamber Sergey Stepashin said in an Interfax interview that businessman Roman Abramovich had better resign from the post of the governor of Chukotka.

"I respect this man, he is a good fellow, but he had better resign”, said Mr. Stepashin. “Abramovich has hobby – soccer, and he should concentrate on it and stop making experiments over the region and its people. Chkotka auditing results demonstrate that Abramovich is letting Russian President down”.

Meanwhile, representative of Chukotka government said in an interview that all the wrongdoings in the region are technical one. Most of them have been eliminated, all the rest will be eliminated soon”.
 
Some experts write that the statement of Russian Auditing Chamber demonstrates the relations of the billionaire with the Kremlin deteriorated, the Guardian wrote.

Lidia Shevtsova from Moscow Carnegie Endownment said that President Putin seems to want to break all the ties with Yeltsin’s epoch where Abramovich was the key player. This also demonstrates that Vladimir Putin intends to maintain the relations with Russian oligarchs on a new basis”.

Ms. Shevtsova believes that it would be illogical of the Kremlin to prosecute Khodorkovsky if Abramovich is not prosecuted in the same way.