Return of ecological fee to Moscow refinery in Kapotnya acknowledged legal

As the Kommersant has got to know, the General Prosecutor's Office found no violations of the law in return of almost 1.4 billion rubles to the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotnya by Department of Natural Resources in Moscow. At the beginning of 2015, this amount was transferred by the Moscow refinery (owned by Gazpromneft) for negative impact on the environment, but soon the capital officials returned the money on account of environmental measures, performed by the Moscow refinery. The supervisory authority inspected the legitimacy of "adjustment of the payment" for negative impact on the environment at the request of State Duma’s deputy Valery Hartung. At the same time, the General Prosecutor's Office found violations of the law in the work of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage: the supervisory department demanded to remove the inter-department ban to count money, spent for environmental protection measures, as environmental charges. This can lead to multibillion-dollar losses of the budget in the form of return of money for the negative impact on the environment to Russian companies, an expert says.

Questions of Valery Hartung to the adjustment of the payment for the negative impact on the environment (almost 1.4 billion rubles) to the Moscow refinery in Kapotnya, which the Moscow Department of Natural Resources held at the beginning of 2015, appeared in early June. He directed inquiries to the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Audit Chamber to check the legality of the return of the money from the state account to a private enterprise. According to Mr. Hartung, 20% of the amount, returned to the plant, according to the Budget Code, were considered federal funds. "It seems to me that regional authorities can’t make decisions on return of federal funds that were supposed to go to the treasury," - Mr. Hartung says to the Kommersant, explaining his decision to send requests to the supervisory authorities.

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