Deputies’ Earnings Inquiry

Oct. 5, 2010

Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin asked the authorities Tuesday to investigate five United Russia members in the State Duma who listed expensive property in their income declarations, assets he said they could not afford on a lawmaker’s salary, Gazeta.ru reported.

The complaint, sent to the government and the Kremlin, targets Valentin Bobyrev, Nikolai Gonchar, Dmitry Savelyev, Andrei Isayev and Andrei Skoch, the latter ranked by Forbes magazine as the richest Duma deputy with a fortune of $1.4 billion.

The top Duma salary in 2008 and 2009 amounted to 4 million rubles ($131,000), but the lawmakers obtained apartments and land plots during that time, and Isayev became the owner of a Maybach sedan worth 10 million rubles ($329,000), according to their income declarations.

Gonchar, Isayev and Skoch denied wrongdoing Tuesday.

Mitrokhin earlier asked for an investigation into the earnings of Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and two other deputies.

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