Poklonskaya promises to track materials collected by her after reorganization of Duma commission on deputies' revenue control
MOSCOW. Sept 14 (Interfax) - State Duma deputy Natalya Poklonskaya (United Russia) has said she believes the anti-corruption component was the main one in the work of the commission she leads and she hopes that the new Duma commission will not lose the possibility of preventing some parliamentarians from bypassing law.
"I hope to God that the new big commission will have the necessary powers and instruments to equally effectively handle issues relating to deputies who are drunk brawlers, the use of foul language, and ownership of assets abroad that are worth billions," Poklonskaya said on her Vkontakte account.
On Thursday, the State Duma Committee on House Rules and Organization of State Duma Activity recommended creating a new commission made up of two commissions, on ethics and on control over deputies' revenues, the committee's head Olga Savostyanova (United Russia) told reporters.
Natalya Poklonskaya (commission on control over deputies' revenues) and Otari Arshba (commission on ethics) will automatically lose their posts as heads of the commissions as a result of this reformatting.
Poklonskaya called the commission, which she headed immediately after being elected to the State Duma and which she has led for two years, "anti-corruption." This commission dealt with situations involving "conflicts of interest," the deputy said,
"For my part, I will try to track all cases that were collected by me and were addressed at the last meeting of the commission [held on Tuesday] on conflicts of interests," Poklonskaya said.
"Honestly, there is nothing unexpected to me in the sudden reorganization of the two Duma commissions, including the anti-corruption one, which is led by me," she said.
"It would be too costly now to implement the publicly promised punishment now, and it would look inappropriate and it would generate too much glorification. And that makes it all a routine thing, we are optimizing by reorganizing. It appears that there is not even a reason to speak about anything," she said.
The State Duma passed a government-proposed bill on changes to the pension legislation, which, among other things, increases the pension age, at first reading on July 19. Poklonskaya was the only deputy in the parliamentary majority who was against the bill. The other 328 United Russia deputies voted for the bill and eight members of the faction did not vote.
United Russia faction then said it intended to look into the situation of Poklonskaya voting against the government-proposed bill, despite the decision on consolidated support of the document.