Russia’s space agency misallocated nearly $2 billion, audit shows

Russia’s Accounts Chamber has revealed that 92 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) have been misallocated by Roscosmos, Russia’s federal space agency. This was announced by head of the Accounts Chamber Tatyana Golikova, following an audit assessing the agency’s spending in 2014. Golikova said that when she heard of this exorbitant sum, she initially “didn’t believe the inspectors.”

Golikova said that Roscosmos misallocated funds, ineffectively distributed resources, and violated budgetary reporting rules.

“This was a complete surprise for me. I first conducted a budget utilization check for the year 2013, and now I worked on 2014 - the number of violations has risen dramatically,” said Golikova.

On May 19, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees Russia’s space program, spoke before parliament of “moral degradation” among the space agency’s chief executives. He also mentioned fraud estimated at 9 billion rubles ($180 million) at the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, a Moscow-based space and rocket technology manufacturer.

Several criminal proceedings have been launched in connection with financial manipulations during the building of Vostochny Cosmodrome, a Russian spaceport currently under construction in the Russian Far East.

Vostochny Cosmodrome has been under construction since 2012. Initially, 300 billion rubles ($6 billion) were allocated for the project, but recent estimates say that costs have risen to 400 billion rubles ($8 billion) over time.

Another Roscosmos project, the development of the “Angara” rocket, has stalled many times over the last 20 years. In 2013, Russia’s Accounts Chamber called this an “unprecedented” and drawn-out period of time. An Accounts Chamber report stated that “the funds invested in the project over the course of two decades are many times higher [than expected], and the rocket has not yet been completed.”