City Hall officials dealing with health care have received about 1.2 billion rubles ($38.6 million) this year in kickbacks from tender winners, the country's top financial inspector told Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
Yury Chikhanchin, head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, said the kickbacks were "systematic" and made possible by "incorrectly" termed conditions for tenders, Interfax reported.
Chikhanchin's agency discovered similar legal violations in other areas of City Hall's activities, including communal services, he said, without elaborating.
Law enforcement agencies are investigating the violations, he said.
Outspoken former Moscow district prefect Oleg Mitvol told Vesti FM state radio that kickbacks in Moscow were possible everywhere because of the "bulky and nontransparent system for managing the city."
An investigation was opened in July into the head of City Hall’s department for bridge and road construction, Alexander Levchenko, after it signed at least 8.5 billion rubles ($279 million) worth of contracts with a company headed by his wife.