At the end of May, the Russian Guard announced a tender for the creation of an automated system for monitoring the circulation of firearms and managing security services – the starting price is 305.5 million rubles, follows from the documentation published on the public procurement website. Rosgvardia intends to consider the applications of bidders by the end of June, and the system should be operational by September 30, 2022.
The new system should include a platform for interaction between participants in the arms market to control the production, storage, circulation and disposal of weapons – the divisions of licensing and permitting work will be automatically notified of their purchase and sale. The platform will contain a unified electronic filing cabinet of individuals and private security guards with information about the storage permits issued to them and the trunks they have.
Citizens themselves using this system will be able to interact with licensing authorities – for example, receive notifications about inspections and the timing of control shooting of barrels. In the terms of reference of the competition, we are also talking about the creation of a system of paperless circulation of permits for the purchase of weapons – in the opinion of customers, it will help to avoid their forgery.
Special attention is paid to security agencies – in particular, it is planned to create a security management platform that would allow private security to respond as quickly as possible to calls and coordinate the actions of the squads.
The Rosgvardia did not answer the questions of Vedomosti.
“A unified system of accounting for civilian weapons is needed in Russia,” said Andrei Sitsko, deputy president of Rosokhotrybolovsoyuz. “It may help to simplify the bureaucratic procedures associated with its transportation and storage, as well as re-registration.”
The competition for the creation of a weapons circulation system was announced two weeks after the tragedy in Kazan school No. 175, where Ilnaz Galyaviev killed nine people from an officially acquired gun. On May 13, President Vladimir Putin announced that it was necessary to tighten control over the circulation of civilian weapons in Russia, “seriously raising the requirements for their owners.” After that, work in this direction intensified – in particular, the rules for passing a medical examination of applicants for the purchase of firearms were tightened.
Meanwhile, the functions listed in the terms of reference of the Rosgvardia competition almost completely coincide with those reflected in the documentation of another competition for the creation of a control system for the circulation of firearms, which the power structure held last year. That tender was won by the Voskhod Scientific Research Institute, subordinate to the Ministry, the amount of the Rosgvardia’s contract with it amounted to a little more than 320 million rubles. Voskhod must also establish a comprehensive arms control system, completing work by December 31, 2021.
“Based on the preamble and the content of both terms of reference, we are talking about very similar unified information systems for processing large amounts of information data, aimed at ensuring the control of arms circulation and the procedure for providing security services,” says Dmitry Gorbunov, managing partner of Rustam Kurmaev & Partners. “I can assume that we are talking about the development of the same system, but for some reason, the definition of a new contractor occurs without terminating the contract with the previous one.” Either we are talking about the creation of two systems with similar goals, or the fact that in the end the first contractor will lose his contract, the lawyer suggests.
From the procurement documentation of the 2020 competition, it follows that the Rosguardia took over the work on the first stage of the project from Voskhod at the end of September 2020, having paid the contractor 139.4 million rubles. But then the customer stopped accepting work under the contract from Voskhod, citing the inadequate quality of performance. One of the acts of acceptance, published on “Goszakupki”, in particular, states that the subsystems lack the software modules provided for by the terms of reference, the technical documentation is incorrectly executed, and other claims are cited. As of June 4 of this year, the amount of penalties that Rosgvardia charged Voskhod for delays and improper performance of work approached 4 million rubles.
Representatives of the Ministry of Tsifra and Voskhod declined to comment.
The contract with Rosgvardia is now valid, it follows from the materials of “State procurement”.
“The announcement of a new competition may be related to the customer’s dissatisfaction with the work of Voskhod,” notes Yury Fedyukin, managing partner of the law firm Enterprise Legal Solutions. – Apparently, we are talking about the purchase of the same services, but it is not clear what will happen to those developments for which Rosgvardia has already paid 140 million rubles. A specific case is knocked out of the usual logic of the customer’s behavior – it can be assumed that there is a search for a new supplier, while the contract with the old one has not been terminated. ” Such a course of events may be due to the tragic events in Kazan and the reaction of the country’s top leadership to them, Fedyukin admits: “To speed up the work on the creation of the system, the National Guard is ready to conclude an agreement with a new developer, without waiting for the termination of the contract with the previous one.”
“The issue of arms trafficking has become very relevant, its social significance is now great,” says Gorbunov. “Recent events show that the current control system is extremely ineffective and new dramatic and quick solutions are required.”
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