Brest: Scandal around BRSM-owned Organization

12.09.2006.

According to RFE/RL

The law machinery has recently started paying interest to the activity of the experimental youth association Palesse that subdues to the pro-governmental Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRSM) and is responsible for building of elite flats and offices in Brest and Pinsk, because the organization didn’t manage to finish the building in time.

The investors accuse Palesse administration of having misused a part of the financial means that were issued for building. According to the preliminary information, almost 700 million rubles disappeared from the bank account during the building of one house in Ardzhanikidze Street in Brest, and the association was building many houses. Then Brest Regional Economic Court sanctioned the arrest of all property of Palesse. The founders of the association who occupy high seats at BRSM refuse to give any comments on the situation.

Let us remind also that this summer the BRSM administration has been accused of violation of the presidential decree On counteraction to human trafficking. The matter is that BRSM has dealt with establishing of building brigades and sending young people to different parts of Belarus and abroad for many years already. However, this summer on return from Anapa (Crimea) informed the Belarusian press that the employers took away their passports, didn’t pay the money promised and made them do menial work instead of the one that had been promised to them.