Large-scale Carriage Fraud Exposed At Belarusian Railways

KGB agents are protecting the corrupt officials.

It's no secret that Belarusian Railways is constantly experiencing a shortage of railcars for loading cargoes. This problem affects most of the types of carriages and, consequently, the cargo owners, the Community of Railwaymen of Belarus reports.

Every client is well aware that if there are no carriages for loading, and Belarusian Railways does not fulfill its obligations under the monthly plans, there are certain officials who solve such problems in a personal, so to say "client-oriented" way.

There is a whole system built up here, both in the segments of influence along the vertical of BelZhD (Belarusian Railways), and in the daily work of the heads of the transportation service (TC), including the Transportation Management Center (TMC), heads of departmental transportation departments (NODN) and heads of stations (HS). These supervisors' daily morning preparations for planning sessions begin with monitoring the fulfillment of their tasks to provide carriages to specific customers. And only then do they pay attention to others. These managers often do not even hide behind general tasks, but directly point out the "special importance" of a particular carriage for a particular client. Throughout the day and even at night, the TC and NODN executives demand reports on the flow of that particular empty carriage for loading. And personnel who do not perform their tasks well are inevitably punished. On the contrary, if the "right" carriages are delivered, a worker can "fail" the main plan, not a tragedy, the main thing to be aware of the "priorities". It is all logical - personal pay must be worked off.

The lowest level of such "decision makers" is a HS. His ability to provide unscheduled carriages depends both on his personality - how "close" the HS is to the NODN management or even the TC, and on the "importance" of the station and/or client, whose interests suddenly become a priority for BelZhD employees.

The middle level is the head of the transportation department branch (TDB), whose conditional autonomy of decisions also depends on "recognition" by both TD heads and TC management.

The upper and most important level is TC management. Certainly, the issues of carriage supply are guaranteed through the heads of BelZhD, who control these issues directly. However, other mechanisms and motivations operate here - more global and systemic corruption, available only to a few customers. But in general, the policy of influence of various levels of the BelZhD vertical on the "solution of issues" is mainly determined by the TC management, but the interests of the heads of specific road departments (NOD) are also present here and have weight. Simply put, they stick to the principle - TC management decides something, and the NOD decides the rest.

Another interesting point is that during natural periods of surplus of certain types of carriages, the TC managers, "in a sincere impulse" to bring good to BelZhD, give part of the carriages to other railway administrations as "carriage assistance", thus, creating an artificial deficit and ensuring their own "importance" in solving the issues and... keeping their "second salary". By the way, the entire staff of the involved accepts such measures, because it helps them to meet the indicators affecting their fat bonuses.

The size of the "rates" for such "service" ranges from $ 30-60 for a covered carriage, to $ 300 for a platform-truck (the so-called "grid").

We should especially note that the so-called "curators" of BelZhD from the KGB are well aware of it, but they do not stop it and do not even try, using this tool to "solve issues" for their "pet" clients; many of them are from the above-mentioned power structure.