Russian Digital Ministry to change procedure for issuance of grants for IT development, to make it more transparent - Shadayev

MOSCOW. Sept 6 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry intends to change the procedure for allocation of grants for IT development to make it more transparent and competitive, Digital Minister Maksut Shadayev told reporters on Wednesday.

The Ministry suspended the allocation of new grants in July after the detention of the former deputy head of the ministry Maxim Parshin, who supervised this work. At that time, the Ministry said that it would audit the decisions already made on grant awards in 2022-2023 and cancel projects if there were doubts about their 100% purity.

Shadayev said Wednesday that the audit is ongoing and is scheduled to be completed "by the end of September - maybe by mid-October."

Until the audit is completed, the Digital Ministry will not resume grant allocations, the minister said.

"So we - it is already obvious - will change the procedure [for issuing grants]," he said.

"We found an opportunity to perfect it, [to boost] the scale of participation, reduce the burden, improve transparency," Shadayev said.

According to him, the audit did not reveal any violations in the allocation of grants. "I can't say that we have found places where abuse is possible," the minister said.

"Now we are sorting out the process, laying it out, understanding where there are some sub-optimal stages, steps, where something must be done to make it even more transparent, competitive, where to exclude the possibility of some influence, for example, of one person, one expert on the procedures. This process, essentially the reassembly of the process of issuing grants, is a complicated one" Shadayev said.

There is no set deadline for changing the procedure for issuing grants, the minister said.

Changing the procedure will also require adjustments to the regulatory framework, Shadayev also said.