The Prosecutor General’s Office has discovered 40,000 legal violations in repair and construction of roads this year, according to a report on its website.
The prosecutor blames federal road-building firm Rosavtodor and regional and municipal officials for not fulfilling the requirements of laws on roads and road safety.
In Mordova, 195.1 million rubles ($6 million) earmarked for road reconstruction in the capital, Saransk, was spent on other projects. In the Jewish autonomous region, work on organizing road traffic through populated areas that was called for in 2007 has still not been completed.
More than half of federal highways and the majority of regional and local roads do not meet the relevant standards.
Road surfaces have defects, there is no lighting, pedestrian crossings are not marked, other road markings are lacking and safety measures proposed by the traffic police have not been implemented, according to the prosecutor’s statement.
There were also violations in the ordering process for goods and services connected with road construction. Suppliers are chosen at auctions without regard to antimonopoly legislation.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said the property rights for roads and adjacent land belonging to federal, regional and municipal entities were not properly registered.
That has caused federal roads to be situated on privately owned land, which significantly increases the costs involved in properly transferring the land to state ownership.
In order to address these violations, prosecutors issued 696 protests. In addition, 7,797 lawsuits have been filed and 7,234 reprimands have been served, resulting in disciplinary action against 1,837 officials, 290 warnings and 975 administrative violations.
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