State Duma Moves to Streamline Financial Oversight for Officials with New Legislation

On Thursday, Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, approved a legislative package that relieves government officials from the obligation of submitting annual public financial disclosures. Lawmakers assert that this decision aims to modernize governmental oversight.

The new legislation stipulates that monitoring the finances of officials and their immediate family members will now be executed via a secured governmental system called Poseidon, which allows for real-time tracking of income, assets, and property. This system is connected to various other government databases, such as those managed by the Federal Tax Service and Rosfinmonitoring, the financial oversight authority.

Vasily Piskaryov, a member of the ruling United Russia party, remarked that this change would enable quicker responses to corruption-related incidents, framing it as a transition away from an «archaic system.»

Access to the Poseidon system will be restricted to certain authorized government entities, including the Presidential Administration and the Federal Protective Service.

Officials will still need to file financial declarations when they assume a new position, switch agencies, or make purchases that surpass their family’s total income over the last three years, as per the provisions of the bill.

If the upper house, Federation Council, approves the changes and President Vladimir Putin signs them, they are scheduled to come into effect on January 1.

The bill was put forward by deputies from various factions within the State Duma just ten days prior to the vote, but members of the Communist Party expressed criticism during the discussions.

In December 2022, President Putin had suspended the requirement for officials to publicly disclose their financial information for the duration of the conflict in Ukraine. Following this suspension, financial disclosures, including those submitted prior to Russia’s large-scale invasion in February 2022, began to vanish from official platforms.

Prior to this decree, Russian law mandated that civil servants publicly report their income and assets as well as those of their close family members under an anti-corruption initiative implemented in 2008.