The Anti-Monopoly Ministry originally proposed creating the inspectorate, which would boost efficiency and cut down on inspections of consumer-goods businesses, Deputy Anti-Monopoly Minister Andrei Golomolzin said.
Inspectors from various agencies routinely inspect businesses with the same questions, and the police, fire department and security agencies often fine businesses for the same offenses. Furthermore, there is no agency to take complaints.
A meat producer needs four certificates hanging on the wall to do business, which looks like a scene from a satire, Anti-Monopoly Minister Ilya Yuzhanov said.
"This is some kind of madness, papers upon papers," he said.
Thirty-five federal agencies watch over the consumer-goods market, along with a huge, changing number of regional inspectorates. Businesses pay these agencies $11.6 billion in bribes per year, according to a recent report from the INDEM analytical center.
Kudrin on Wednesday ordered government bodies including Gosstandart, the Agriculture Ministry, the Health Ministry, the Anti-Monopoly Ministry and the Economic Development and Trade Ministry to write up proposals for creating the inspectorate by the commission's next session, which is scheduled for June.
The Economic Development and Trade Ministry has begun analyzing information collected from agencies that are to comprise the Federal Inspectorate, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Alexander Maslov said.
"But because the consumer-goods market is large, it will take us another month and a half [to draw up a proposal]," Maslov said.
The ministry does not even know how many people work in the inspection services or how they are financed, he said.
Oleg Komarovsky, deputy director of the Social Agreement project, said the Federal Inspectorate would be a positive move toward conducting inspections according to a publicized set of rules with known limitations.
Such an agency would leave no room for "creativity" in inspecting businesses, he said.
Making state inspections more efficient is a good idea, but the government risks turning the Federal Inspectorate into an uncontrollable super-ministry with functions crossing over into other ministries' expertise, said Nadezhda Nazina, deputy head of the Economic Development and Trade Ministry's government organs.
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