Selling a position for a million is easy

But to get it in reality - a real quest that can be completed without government representatives - is impossible.

I see how there continues to be an active discussion online about the sale of positions of heads of regional customs.

But all the discussions somehow bypass the key point of the “auction” of customs positions.

This point is the approval of any appointments of this level by the Minister of Finance Sergei Marchenko.

You can sell to anyone any position of the head of any customs, but without the approval of Sergei Mikhailovich, all your sales are just wet dreams of obtaining these positions.

About Marchenko’s signature, over the past five years, dozens of copies of reformers have been broken, who tried to appoint their teams, but instead received either outright refusals or an approval procedure for a period of 5-6 months, until the tenure of the Head of Customs himself ended due to “inability” do something.

Both Nefedov and Ryabikin had direct conflicts along the lines of coordination.

And I have already written about this several times.

Only two factors can influence Marchenko's approval.

The first is political, such as the quick approval by the head of the Odessa customs of the outright corrupt official Denis Pudrik, whose father-in-law Sergei Kunitsyn is not the last person in the OP.

Let's call the second option conditionally commercial.

Any Head of Customs must “justify” to the Ministry of Finance the importance of appointing any person to positions from the level of deputy regional customs.

The Ministry of Finance also has its own separate channel for appointments and “sales” of positions at customs, when in exchange for appointing the right people to the Chairman of the State Customs Service, the Ministry of Finance “asks” to find a place for people who brought “runners” to the Ministry of Finance from other directions.

In simple words, “bash to bash.”

We approve your corrupt officials, and you appoint ours as their deputies.

If the Head of Customs follows principle and refuses to play such dirty games, then the Ministry of Finance also follows principle and blocks important personnel decisions.

I in no way accuse Sergei Marchenko of involvement in the sale of positions at customs, I simply draw the community’s attention to the real mechanics of the processes.

Selling a position for a million is easy, but getting it in reality is a real quest that cannot be completed without government representatives.