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Alstom, Austria, Berlin, bid, Chancellor, competitive bidding, contracts, corruption, Crimea, Cummins, Cummins Rail, Dialogue of Civilizations, Ed Pence, FARA, Gusenbauer, Hapsburg group, Heavy Duty Engine Business of Cummins, High-Horsepower Engine Business, Indiana, KAMAZ, Manafort, Mercury PR firm, Metrovagonmash, Mike Pence, Pence, Pence motive, power generation, purchasing, Putin, rail, Russia, Russia military, Russiagate, Russian Railways, sanctions, Seymour Indiana, subcontractors, Tillerson, Transmashholding, Trump, Ukraine, US sanctions, USSR, Vladimir Yakunin, VP Strategic Initiatives, whistle-blower, Yakunin
Much of Russia literally runs off of Cummins engines, which is based in Trump VP Mike Pence’s hometown in Indiana. His brother, Ed, who has worked for Cummins since 1981, just retired from a high level (VP Strategic Initiatives) Cummins position at age 60. Individuals associated with Cummins-the Cummins PAC have been top donors to Mike Pence’s political campaigns.[1] Cummins has been in Russia since the 1970s. Ed Pence started his Cummins career in purchasing in 1981.
For instance, Cummins Engines are used for this RA2 Russian Railways Commuter Train:
RA2 Multiple Unit was constructed from 2005-2014, entered in service of the Russian government owned Russian Railways, starting in 2006. It is made by Metrovagonmash, owned by Transmashholding, which until 2016 was 25% owned by Russian Railways. Alstom increased its share from 25 to 33% in 2016.[2]
As reported in “Cummins Rail News, 2016“: “The success of the TEM2-UMMC and TMG4B-UMMC repower project has allowed the relationship between Cummins and Russian Railways to blossom and there are more exciting projects to come. This summer Bryansk Engineering Plant (BMZ), a subsidiary of Transmashholding and the leading manufacturer of diesel locomotives in Russia and CIS, has unveiled a new prototype six-axle shunting locomotive powered by Cummins QST30-L2 for Russian Railways (RZD).” (p. 5) [3] Recall that Crimea was annexed by Russia in early 2014. Sanctions? What sanctions? Cummins may not be violating the letter of the law, but certainly its spirit/intent.
The most recent charges against Manafort included mention of the Hapsburg group. Based on the Mercury PR firm late FARA filing (April 2017), the head of the Hapsburg group appears to be former Chancellor of Austria, Alfred Gusenbauer. According to Deutsche Welle, Gusenbauer “is now a member of the ‘Dialogue of Civilizations’ think tank in Berlin. Vladimir Yakunin, one of the organization’s founders, was placed on a US sanctions list in 2014 in response to Russian intervention in Ukraine…” [4]
At age 70, Yakunin was old enough to retire, so it’s unclear why this is considered unusual. On the other hand, US Vice President Mike Pence’s brother Ed retired from a high-power position at Cummins at age 60 and no one has blinked an eye, nor wondered if it has to do with the Mueller team possibly nipping at the heels of his brother Mike. Mike Pence was reportedly a Manafort pick. [5]
From RFE/RL: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-railways-yakunin-whistle-blower-corruption/28042893.html
“Russian Whistle-Blower Pulls Back Cover On Railways Corruption
October 10, 2016 12:53 GMT, by Sergei Khazov-Cassia
When the head of Russia’s state-owned railroad monopoly was abruptly dismissed last year, the announcement stopped many in and out of Russia in their tracks.
Vladimir Yakunin was considered to be one of President Vladimir Putin’s closest associates, and his neighbor back in the 1990s in an exclusive real estate development known as Ozero. Though he had been hit with U.S. sanctions over Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, many within Russia assumed he was untouchable.
After his dismissal, Yakunin was offered a seat in Russia’s upper house of parliament. He ended up refusing, instead establishing a nongovernmental organization called Dialogue of Civilizations, and was given a medal by Putin.
But some observers suspected a different motive for his departure, speculating that the Kremlin was concerned that at a time when cash was scarce, he had been enriching himself while corruption and mismanagement had made Russian Railways embarrassingly dependent on state subsidies.
Sprawling Corruption
Russian Railways, the world’s third-largest railway company, suffered a net loss of $1.5 billion in 2014. The business newspaper Vedomosti reported last year that it will need $6.8 billion in government subsidies from 2016 until 2020 to stay profitable.
Now, an investigation by RFE/RL has peeled back some of the layers to reveal how corruption seems to function in a huge Russian company on a very basic level: No-bid contracts. Documents missing authorized signatures. Inflated bids and unauthorized private subcontractors using public resources. (http://www.svoboda.org/a/28011898.html )
Within Russian Railways’ sprawling operation — which employs around 900,000 people — one of the largest divisions is the Central Infrastructure Directorate, which oversees the company’s 85,000 kilometers of tracks, and related maintenance and infrastructure.
Internal documents, contracts, and other legal materials obtained by RFE/RL show how contractors hired by the Infrastructure Directorate hired out private companies to do work — such as clearing vegetation from tracks or snow removal or even supply electricity — and then brought in railroad employees to shift costs back onto the state-owned company. It is not clear who at Russian Railways, if anyone, benefited from such practices.
‘Exceptional Circumstances’ Common
As a state-owned company, Russian Railways was required to make purchasing deals in an open, competitive manner — theoretically, as a way to hold costs down — except under exceptional circumstances. But the documents show that the Infrastructure Directorate regularly flouted that rule, citing “exceptional circumstances” as a routine matter. Moreover, the company’s top managers broadened the definition of when using a single supplier for a good or service was allowed.
In one example, RFE/RL found the Infrastructure Directorate relied on two outside law firms, NIIAS and Erta-Consult, to draft contracts and other legal documents that could have easily been completed by the railway company’s in-house lawyers.
NIIAS, which was paid 11 million rubles (about $332,000 at the time) for its work in 2014, is majority owned by Russian Railways, with a 25 percent stake belonging to other shareholders. Erta-Consult, whose ownership is split between an unnamed Russian citizen and two Cypriot firms, was paid 11.8 million rubles in 2013 ($391,000) for “preparing documents for the Ministry of Energy.”
In another case, a company called RemStroi won a 1.3 million-ruble ($43,000) contract in 2013 to repair fuel holding tanks, but then hired another company to do the work for around 300,000 rubles less. A police investigation later concluded the work could not have cost more than 215,000 rubles ($3,500) to complete.
In 2011, a company called Legion was one of several awarded contracts to clear trees and other vegetation along some of the railroad’s rights-of-way, including in the Sverdlovsk region, in the Urals. But the same work cost one-third to one-fifth as much when it was done by Russian Railways’ own employees or those of its regional affiliates. Moreover, Legion ended up cutting much less distance in the rights-of-way — so much so that in 2011-12, railroad employees were sent back out to do the cutting themselves.
Whistle-Blowers Sidelined
Aleksandr Margiyev, who was hired in 2012 to run the legal-contracting department within the Infrastructure Directorate, told RFE/RL that the directorate’s management was to blame for the cost overruns, no-bid contracts, and other practices that contributed to spiraling costs for the company.
Margiyev said he had blocked the signing of “illegal contracts made on the basis of countless directives without any competition,” as well as the “illegal dismissals” of companies contracted by Russian Railways.
Margiyev alleged that the people who oversaw many of the no-bid contracts included now-retired head of the Infrastructure Directorate, Vladimir Suprun, and the vice president for infrastructure, Aleksandr Tselko. A longtime associate of Yakunin’s, Tselko left the company not long after Yakunin was pushed out.
Margiyev also said that he was rebuffed when he complained about the alleged contracting irregularities to senior officials — including Yakunin and board chairman Arkady Dvorkovich, a deputy prime minister — and was fired on a minor technicality in December 2014. A Moscow court later reinstated him.
Margiyev’s dismissal was corroborated by one of his deputies, Marina Kochetova, who told RFE/RL that Suprun’s deputies tried to push her, and another colleague, to leave the company. “After his dismissal, [the deputies] almost every day demanded that [we] hand in our own letters of resignation, but we refused,” she said.
Three months after Margiyev’s dismissal, Kochetova and another legal department employee discovered that some of the incriminating documents and contracts had disappeared from their computer hard drives. When they complained they were reprimanded, she said, and later demoted and replaced with employees with minimal
experience.
RFE/RL could not reach Suprun or Tselko for comment on the allegations raised by Margiyev. Russian Railways did not reply to a request for comment lodged on October 7.”
With reporting by Mike Eckel
Sergei Khazov-Cassia
Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036 https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-railways-yakunin-whistle-blower-corruption/28042893.html
Cummins affiliated donations to Pence: https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors?cid=N00003765&cycle=CAREER
According to Bloomberg, Ed Pence was Cummins Vice President and General Manager of The Heavy Duty Engine Business division of Cummins starting from May 17, 2005, and of the High Horsepower Engine Business division starting from February 1, 2013 (Cummins retirement notice gives 2012) . He was also Vice President and General Manager of their Automotive Business division at one point. He started working at Cummins in 1981. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=677068&privcapId=265253
Ed Pence announced his retirement in December of 2017, from a position of Vice President of Strategic Initiatives. He started working at Cummins after graduating from Indiana University in 1981 [Since Mike Pence was born in 1959 and Ed is an older brother, he was probably born around 1957 or 1958 if he went from high school to university. And, internet sources indicate that he is 60 years of age. Cummins has been in Russia since the 1970s, when it was still the USSR.] Pence started off in purchasing; then became an account manager; then industrial sales manager for Cummins Diesel Australia; then an “account executive working with heavy duty truck customers“. He became “the leader of the High Horsepower Engine Business in 2012“. He also recently “played a key role in restructuring at Cummins that led to High Horsepower’s merging with Cummins Power Generation to become Cummins Power Systems.” He “played a key role in laying the groundwork for the Eaton Cummins Automated Transmission Joint Venture announced” in 2017. See the retirement announcement here: https://web.archive.org/web/20180226040256/https://www.cummins.com/news/releases/2017/12/07/ed-pence-retiring-after-36-years-cummins
More Cummins and Russia: https://web.archive.org/web/20180226040558/http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/cummins-and-russian-manufacturer-kamaz-form-joint-venture-to-produce-mid-range-engines-444950
https://web.archive.org/web/20180226040910/https://www.todaystrucking.com/cummins-extends-isx-deal-with-volvo-signs-joint-venture-with-russian-engine-firm/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RA2_Multiple_Unit Metrovagonmash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrovagonmash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmashholding
https://web.archive.org/web/20160306225325/http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/business/single-view/view/russian-railways-to-sell-transmashholding-stake.html
[3] This will only provide the cover page. To see the entire pdf you need to go to the Cummins web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20180226070355/https://cumminsengines.com/brochure-download.aspx?brochureid=1351
[4] http://www.dw.com/en/european-politicians-got-millions-to-lobby-for-pro-russian-government-in-ukraine/a-42721849
[5] Excerpt from NYTimes: “How Donald Trump Picked His Running Mate :
“By early June, Manafort and Lewandowski had requested that Culvahouse do a formal vetting of six individuals on the list: Sessions, Ernst, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee.” https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/20/magazine/how-donald-trump-picked-his-running-mate.html
See too: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/4/21/1655059/-A-Pence-Manafort-Russia-connection-before-Trump
Related: “Bombardier and the Putin connection“, MARK MACKINNON LONDON
THE GLOBE AND MAIL LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DEC. 22, 2016 10:12AM EST
https://web.archive.org/web/20170101041840/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bombardier-and-the-putin-connection/article33354878/
Mining Awareness + 
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