MOSCOW, May 27 (RIA Novosti) – Special classes on “anti-corruption behavior” should be introduced in higher educational establishments that train future state and municipal officials, Irina Yarovaya, head of the State Duma Security and Anticorruption Committee, said on Monday.
“Our education system, particularly in programs teaching state and municipal management, currently needs classes in anti-corruption behavior,” Yarovaya told RIA Novosti.
The lawmaker said it was also important to preserve competitive selection in hiring for state service jobs so that state officials are appointed based “not on favoritism, but on [their] high level of competence and personal characteristics.”
Izvestia daily reported on Monday that lawmakers from the Russian parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, are preparing a list of amendments to the current anti-corruption legislature, with one of the amendments seeking to oblige state officials to undergo an “anti-corruption test” on a lie detector.
The Kremlin launched a much-vaunted anti-corruption campaign last fall, promising to limit the right of legislators and state officials to own assets abroad, purging several lawmakers over allegations of illegal business activity and implicating then-Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov in a large-scale corruption case.
The Transparency International global watchdog estimated the cost of corruption in Russia at $300 billion in 2012, placing Russia 133rd out of 174 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index last year.
