I was amused to see RIA Novosti reporting the arrest of a con-man who had attempted to sell government posts to gullible businessmen.
In a statement, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that: “the suspect offered to sell senior government posts to interested parties, such as the post of deputy governor of St. Petersburg’s housing department for 10 million euros ($13.5 million) and the post of governor of the Krasnodar Territory [in southern Russia] for 30 million euros ($40 million).” The Ministry also reported that the con-man had been caught trying to collect a $5 million bribe for the Governership of Irkutsk.
It’s interesting to see ther relative value of these posts on an open-market of a sort – although I’m disappointed, as a former inhabitant of Irkutsk, to see that that the going rate for the Governorship of this Siberian oblast is only an eighth of the going rate to become Governor of Krasnodar.
I wonder how much you’d have to pay for a senior government post – if reports of the $40 billion that Putin accumulated during his time as Russian President are accurate (and happily, they’re probably not), then I suspect you’d need to stump up quite a sum…