MOSCOW, October 13 (RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov) – The Government of Russia has submitted to the State Duma two bills toughening liability for offenses and violations in the sphere of the State Defense Procurement and Acquisition, the Cabinet’s official website announced on Thursday.

According to the government, adoption of the proposed draft laws would contribute to fight against unlawful diversion of funds allocated from the budget for filling of the state defense order.

The first bill would amend the Russian Criminal Code by introducing a special crime component called “large scale expenditure of monetary resources held for performance of the government’s defense order tasks and for purposes unrelated to their fulfillment committed by managers of commercial or other organizations being general contractor of product supply on the defense order; executors participating in product supplies on defense order and self-employed entrepreneurs.”

The initiative also proposes tightened criminal punishment for large scale spending of budgetary funds by public procurement authority’s officials on the government’s defense order for purposes non-complying with conditions to the receipt of the money.

The second bill stipulates fines of up to 500,000 rubles ($8,000) or disqualification for up to 3 years for officials; increased fines ranging from 10 to 25% of total funds received for companies committed misuse of public funds if their actions were free of criminal offence. Amendments are proposed to the Administrative Offense Code.