Inquiry into the case of 12 school directors in Chechnya is not over

The Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya has opened criminal cases against directors of 12 schools of the Vedeno District. According to the investigation, last summer each of them appropriated, by forgery, 30,000 roubles. Defendants' colleagues speak about constant extortions and small salaries of teachers. Also, they are confused by the fact that all the 12 directors are suspected of simultaneous forgery and appropriation of the same sum. The investigation continues.

"Criminal cases have been opened against 12 school directors of the Vedeno District under part 1, Article 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("service forgery"). The investigation has established that in June-August last year these directors embezzled, by entering false data into purchase orders on different goods for the needs of their entities, 30,000 roubles each. Thus, the total sum of appropriated money made 360,000 roubles," a source in the republic's law enforcement bodies said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to his story, the defendants are under threat of a large fine (up to 80,000 roubles under the respective article of the Criminal Code) or imprisonment of up to two years.

In the meantime, defendants' colleagues believe that school directors of the Vedeno District were forced to make their service forgery "not from good life." "To make decisions on the issue one should know the state of affairs from inside. I worked for many years as school director in Grozny and I'm sure that the directors made their service forgery not from good life. The point is that directors have to pay a sort of permanent bribe to bureaucrats from the Ministry of Education; and it's a fact," said a citizen of Grozny, who worked in due time as a school director.

He said that he had been dismissed after he refused to pay a bribe of several thousands of dollars. "We have a structure named the Department of Education of the city of Grozny. One year before my dismissal almost all the specialists of that Department, who had worked there for many years, were dismissed and replaced by young officials. After that, we were literally tortured by constant checks. They came almost every month and extorted money for every revealed 'violation'," said the source.

According to his story, the sums were from two-three to ten thousand US dollars.

Another teacher who had worked in the education system of Chechnya for more than 20 years believes that should directors and teachers receive worthy salaries, there would be no such phenomena like postscripts, "dead souls", sale of secondary education certificates and so on.