Criminal cases against top managers and officials

Criminal cases against managers, including director-level, are initiated systemically. At the moment authorities are not threatened with ‘nomenclature revolution’, but if the trend of shifting the responsibility for the modernization failures on top managers continues, manageability at enterprises will reduce.

Majority of the criminal cases refer to embezzlement through abuse of office. Recently views have been expressed that if Alexander Lukashenko continues pressurising directors and nomenclature, he might face a state coup. We believe, currently these assessments are not justified. The pressure is used ad hoc, and 9 in 10 corruption and office abuse cases against directors provoke no doubts.

Analysis of initiated and completed criminal cases against officials and business leaders demonstrates that the KGB is the main investigating body in these cases, because often employees of other anti-corruption bodies are themselves involved in various corruption schemes.

In early 2013 there was a spring in the number of criminal cases against top managers. A new feature is that the managerial personnel are to blame for the failed modernization policies at production facilities, for instance, at JSC Mogilevdrev. Consequences could become threatening if directors were accused of negligence and held responsible for the enterprises’ economic failures. So far, it is premature to call it a ‘trend’, however, the signals are traceable. The policy of shifting responsibility for non compliance with projected forecasts on directors’ corps will not result in nomenclature coup d’état, but will reduce enterprises’ manageability and impair regional managers’ competence.