Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Kremlin’s earnings list gives glimpsea of officials’ wealth

minus
plus

Andrea Palasciano


The Kremlin’s annual list of Russian officials’ earnings has provided an outline of the richest names in government, even as the true wealth of many big-hitters remains opaque.


Anomalous results include a senator whose income is 230 times higher than the previous year and several government heavyweights whose earnings are eclipsed by those of their wives.


While speculation is rife about the personal fortune of Russian President Vladimir Putin, his officially declared income in the documents is relatively modest — in 2017 he earned 18.7 million rubles ($302,000).


His only declared properties are a 77-square-metre apartment and a garage, while a 1,500-square-metre plot of land that was listed the previous year is no longer mentioned.


Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev — who anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has accused of commanding a luxury property empire — declared an income of just 8.56 million rubles, one flat and a rented plot of land.


Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earned 14.3 million rubles in 2017, but is married to Tatiana Navka — an Olympic ice dancing champion who heads two enterprises that have benefited from state contracts, according to data from the Russian Interfax news agency.


Navka, who was named in the ‘Panama Papers’ scandal, had an income of 200 million rubles last year, up 66 per cent from 2016.


The income of Marina Medinskaya, the wife of culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, also eclipsed that of her husband — boosted by her position as director of property and advertising companies, according to the Interfax data. According to an estimate by the RBK newspaper, the average family income of senior Russian officials has grown by 18 per cent over the last year, even as the country’s economy makes slow progress recovering from a recession.


The highest-earning member of parliament in Russia is Grigory Anikeyev, with an income of 4.3 billion rubles in 2017, an eight-fold increase over the previous year.


The owner of the meat-processing ABI group, Anikeyev is listed among the 200 richest Russians by Forbes magazine.


Among the richest senators, according to the documents, is Suleyman Kerimov, whose income is now 230 times what it was in 2016 and who is currently being investigated for tax fraud in France. In an angry editorial entitled ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?’ for the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, managing editor Alexei Polukhin slammed the “phenomenal” increase in officials’ earnings. —AFP


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon