Kremlin to crack down on nepotism in govt - newspaper
MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) - The Kremlin plans to crackdown on nepotism at all tiers of state, Moscow daily Izvestia said on Wednesday, citing a Kremlin source.
"It has been decided to put all senior appointments of officials' relatives both in the center and in the provinces under the special control of the presidential administration," Izvestia quoted the source as saying.
Moreover, all ministries and government agencies will be ordered to thoroughly check the family ties of all candidates for high office, the source said.
He said close relatives of an official will be allowed to hold senior jobs but officials who are going to appoint them or are lobbying for their appointment will have to prove their advantages. "If such an appointment is useful for the state there will be no question," the source said.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Izvestia: "In effect, it can be said that there is no serious problem of nepotism in our system of government, it isn't a very acute problem."
The newspaper said the nepotism issue had surfaced after the son of Nikolai Merkushkin, governor of the Samara region and a former leader of the republic of Mordovia, was appointed as Mordovian deputy prime minister.
Merkushkin's 34-year-old son had never served in government, heading a bank and another company before his appointment as deputy prime minister, the daily said.
