30.10 Prosecutors Expose Major Irregularities at Russia's 'Silicon Valley'
MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) Russian prosecutors said Wednesday they have exposed major financial irregularities and waste at a center for innovation that has long been the pet project of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
The Prosecutor Generals office said in a statement that spending at the Skolkovo Foundation has become out of control and extravagant and that it has inappropriately spent 125 billion rubles ($3.9 billion) of government funds.
Legal violations at Skolkovo, which has been conceived as a Russian analogue of Silicon Valley aimed at kick-starting the countrys high-tech economy, stands to put the projects future in doubt, according to prosecutors.
Skolkovo President Viktor Vekselberg, Russias fourth richest man according to Forbes magazines 2013 wealth rankings, also allegedly benefited directly from a lax grant-issuing process.
Seventeen grants for a sum of 3.6 billion rubles ($113 million) were distributed without any expert review, and in 3 cases members of the grant commission, including the foundation president, had a personal interest, the statement said.
Skolkovo has attracted financial support from major companies in Russia and abroad. Microsoft, Boeing and Cisco are official partners of Skolkovo and have made significant financial investments into the foundation.
The center has suffered a series of setbacks this year, which political analysts have speculated may be part of an attempt to discredit the initiative, which was established amid much fanfare by then-President Medvedev in 2009. The decline in Skolkovos fortunes has coincided with the return to the presidency of Vladimir Putin.
