Medvedev endorses national anti-corruption plan

MOSCOW, August 2 (Itar-Tass) - Corruption is a scourge, which has to be tackled by joint effort.

"Society should understand that we will be unable to make progress and effectively solve people's problems if we fail to defeat this evil," Vyacheslav Volodin, the secretary of the presidium of the United Russia party General Council said on Friday, as he commented on a national anti-corruption plan endorsed by President Dmitry Medvedev.

Vyacheslav Volodin said that Russian legislation would have to be
amended to make the anti-corruption plan work. "Control should be
increased over the implementation of all anti-corruption legislative acts
that are passed by all bodies of state power," Volodin went on to say.
Andrei Isayev, the first deputy secretary of the presidium of the
United Russia General Council who heads the Russian State Duma committee
for labour and social policy, believes that the new anti-corruption plan
will take Russia's struggle against corruption to a totally new level.
"It's a logical step that derives from Russia's ratification of
international conventions and its entry into the Council of Europe's Group
of States against corruption," Isayev went on to say. He explained that
systemic and weighted approach is what differs the new anti-corruption
plan from all the previous measures taken to eradicate this social evil.
Irina Yarovaya, a member of the United Russia Party General Council,
the deputy head of the Russian State Duma Committee for the affairs of the
federation and regional policy and coordinator of the state patriotic
club, said that fighting corruption was impossible without forming a new
system of values in society. "It's a person's reputation, his
understanding of what is honour and administrative duty. Russia used to
have this understanding in past history," Yarovaya went on to say. "We
should return to the times when reputation determined a person's future
and destiny and when the loss of that reputation was the most tangible
loss in life," she stressed.
Andrei Makarov, the deputy head of the State Duma committee for budget
and taxes, notes that President Medvedev has made struggle against
corruption his priority. He assumed responsibility as he decides to head
this struggle.
"The first results of anti-corruption struggle are very important. We
shouldn't be carried away with high-profile trials and get involved in
company campaign. The struggle against corruption should be systemic,"
Makarov emphasized.