CONCEALMENT OF DECLENSION THROUGH THE PRISM OF LAW

June 29, 2021

Livestock population is one of the main sources of income for agricultural enterprises.

Livestock population is one of the main sources of income for agricultural enterprises. For this reason, issues of preserving and increasing the cattle population in each farm directly affect the financial condition of the economic entity and the well-being of the work collective. It is by the sale of livestock products that one can judge the effectiveness of the work of a particular agricultural enterprise.

In this regard, the problem of cattle mortality and other non-productive losses is constantly in the focus of authorities, as this negative phenomenon is often associated with the human factor and is caused by ordinary mismanagement on the part of both the management and specialists of the farm, as well as individual employees.

Article 400 of the Labor Code of the Republic of Belarus provides for the conditions under which an employee may be held materially liable, including for cattle mortality.

This legal provision obliges employers, for the purpose of subsequent recovery of damages from the guilty person, to consider each case of mortality at working meetings, clarifying the causes and conditions that contributed to it, as well as the presence or absence of guilt of a specific employee in the incident.

However, the heads of a number of agricultural enterprises do not always strive to act in accordance with these legal requirements.

What tricks do individual officials of agricultural enterprises in the district resort to in order to conceal cases of mortality and, thus, their shortcomings in the performance of their duties.

As practice shows, the most common method of concealing cattle mortality has become the оформление of fictitious documents (applications, cattle disposal certificates, waybills) in the name of livestock breeders, allegedly for the sale of the deceased animal by the latter against their wages. Subsequently, the farm's accounting department makes deductions from the wages of the unaware employee, which are not disclosed.

Cases of concealing animal deaths have also been identified through the creation of fictitious documents regarding the alleged sale of animals to meat processing plants.

Similar cases have been detected at SUP "Konstantinov Dvor", OJSC "Chernevichi", UP "Golubichi", and SHF "Proshkovo".

In doing so, some officials of agricultural enterprises forget that in such situations, their actions may be reviewed by law enforcement agencies through the lens of criminal law.

In this situation, the actions of such an "ingenious" official may be qualified under Part 2 of Article 424 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, as abuse of official powers, which provides for imprisonment for a term of 2 to 6 years with or without a fine and with disqualification from holding certain positions, or under Article 427 of the Criminal Code, as official forgery.

Thus, the conclusion is self-evident: playing with statistics and artificially creating an appearance of well-being in terms of livestock preservation can lead to serious consequences for an employee who chooses such a path to conceal animal deaths.

District Prosecutor I.S. Volynets