The Finance Ministry has canceled a tender to supply a gilded negotiating table and chairs after Vedomosti called to ask why it planned to spend up to 2.5 million rubles ($80,000) on the flashy furniture.
Vedomosti discovered the latest "golden tender" among orders posted by the Finance Ministry. On June 2, the ministry began accepting bids in an open tender to supply a negotiating table, a computer table and 20 matching chairs.
The requirements for the negotiating table were none too modest. The frame was to be a solid block of beechwood, decorated with cherry inlays. From there, the description begins to sound like something of an advertisement.
"The surface of the tabletop's frame should be sanded and hand-painted in walnut, which will preserve the wood's unique texture and the inimitable design," the description read.
But the key feature was the leather insert in the tabletop with a gold embossment around the perimeter made from pure gold foil.
The computer table and chairs were to be prepared from the same materials, including gilding. The main criterion for the tender was the supplier's schedule — accounting for 65 percent of the bid's success — while the cost would account for the remaining 35 percent.
The tender results were to be announced July 2, with the winner expected to supply all of the furniture within six days. A Finance Ministry official said the items were needed for a meeting room with unusual dimensions, which is why they decided to order customized furniture.
A gilded negotiating table like the one described would start at 500,000 rubles ($16,000), while the chairs would cost about 100,000 rubles, said furniture expert Vadim Bakhtov. Since the items are not mass-produced, the supplier would be able to set the maximum price, he said.
But delivering the order from scratch in six days is unlikely, since the entire set would need to be finished to the order's specifications, Bakhtov said.
Vedomosti found a similar furniture set online from the Italian firm Pitti, named after the Renaissance-era Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Its orders are completed within 90 days.
A spokesman said senior ministry officials decided to cancel the tender after Vedomosti's inquiry, adding that the tender contained an error. "The starting sum for the lot was supposed to be 1.3 million rubles, and the plan was to purchase it for no more than 1 million rubles," the ministry spokesman said.
The Finance Ministry's reaction contrasted sharply with that of the Interior Ministry, which decided to proceed with a similar order in August. The ministry bought a collection of 55 items for 4.4 million rubles, including a cherry bed with a thin layer of 24-karat gold covering the headboard and footboard.
Valery Gribakin, head of the Interior Ministry's press department, said at the time that the furniture was needed for the ministry's guesthouse on Ulitsa Serebryany Bor, where it hosts high-ranking foreign officials.
For various reasons, the ministry rejected all of the bids except one, from Ofisny Komfort. The firm signed a contract with the ministry for 4.26 million rubles, just under the maximum bid.
The Finance Ministry's cancellation is unlikely to signal a change in policy on luxury purchases, since the reaction depends on a body's leadership, said Pavel Kudyukin, a lecturer on public administration at the Higher School of Economics.
Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin regularly calls for reducing budget expenses and the number of civil servants, so naturally he would not want to be associated with luxury purchases, Kudyukin said.
Furniture with gilding and other frills isn't ordered to show off, said a procurement official at a federal state body. "It's just that someone liked a particular model in a store, and it happened to have all of that already," the official said.
Meanwhile, the Transportation Ministry recently announced a tender of its own. The ministry is accepting bids through June 30, for up to 3 million rubles, to supply scientifically based research that would clarify the ministry's functions.
A ministry spokesperson declined comment.
Every year, the ministries receive budget funding that must be spent on scientific studies and research and development, a Transportation Ministry official said. "In any event, the money needs to be spent, but the officials get to decide on what."