Government's income transparency requirement puts Russian Railways Corp. CEO in dilemma
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Russian Railways Corporation (RZD) CEO Vladimir Yakunin is in a dilemma that could radically change his brilliant career in the Russian railway transportation sector.
The reason is a new government resolution that requires absolute transparency of incomes of all civil servants or heads of major state-owned enterprises.
Late last year, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree obliging the heads of such corporations to fully disclose information about their incomes on their companies' official websites. In other words, such information should be completely open and fully accessible to the public.
The new resolution is aimed at closing the loophole in the directive adopted last summer that did not contain a requirement for mandatory public disclosure of such information. However, Yakunin believes this requirement constitutes an unlawful interference into his private life, and consequently, he is now thinking over whether to abide by the new rule and continue to work in a state-owned company or go into private business.
“My position is that this requirement constitutes an unjustified interference into my private life. I have two options, either obey or say that I do not like this requirement, submit an application for dismissal and go into private business,” the RZD CEO told the TV channel Russia 24.
However, it should be noted here that the new government decree affect a total of 62 fully state-owned or government-affiliated corporations. Apart from RZD, these include Rosneft, Gazprom" Rosatom, Aeroflot, Inter RAO UES, Rostelecom, Sheremetyevo, Sberbank, VTB, Russian Agricultural Bank, United Aviation Corp., United Ship Building Corp., Rusnano Rosneftegaz, Russian Networks, System Operator, RusHydro, Sovcomflot and a rate of other corporations.
The heads of the other state-owned corporate giants have not officially disclosed their positions on the new government regulation. But the Russian Railways CEO said that he was not opposed in principle to report his incomes to the state, but that he is against the publication of such data in public domain.
Indeed, the executive seems to take the directive personally, saying that the directive violates the law on protection of privacy, notably, his incomes. This, he said, poses a direct threat to his family members. “I don't care if the government insists on this issue because I have nothing to hide. My salary is not determined by me, but by the RZD Board of Directors; the RZD's budget is approved by the government, the CEO continued.
“But what I can't stand is when people start delving into other people's underwears. The mission of an objective social control has been hijacked by people of questionable characters, " he added.
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