Remember last week’s news that Putin was giving his hard up top civil servants and Duma deputies a pay rise, so that they’d no longer have a need to take bribes? Well, by the looks of their latest reported spending habits, it looks like that pay rise might have to be just a bit larger than planned if it is going to make up the shortfall from not being on the take. A bunch of Duma deputies, with average salaries of $10,000 pa, have just been caught out booking luxury $30,000 cruises to the 2004 Olympics in Greece…
The Westerdam liner embarked from Venice on a voyage to Greece Thursday. The previous day, MIBS Travel, which booked the ministers, made public a list of government officials that had already paid for their trips, the newspaper said, citing the travel company’s head.
…According the declared incomes, Yevgeny Savchenko, governor of the Belgorod region, made 367,332 rubles (just barely over $10,000) last year. State Duma Deputy Gennady Raikov made just 289,365 rubles last year.
To fund a trip like this, the deputies would have to have been saving up the money for 10-15 years, the newspaper said.
Talk your way out of that one, lads.
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