| The Cabinet of Ministers will discuss railway reform at its next meeting The wave of terrorist attacks in Russia practically made the people and the media forget about the existence of the government. Meanwhile, the government has not gone away. It continues to work.
Ministers are returning from vacation. And the usual Thursday cabinet meeting, apparently, will be held in full. The distributed meeting agenda, which was prepared in advance, was supplemented with one item. The head of the Ministry of Health, Mikhail Zurabov, who is due to return from his next business trip to Beslan, will make a report.
Cabinet members will discuss Mr. Zurabov's proposals on the subject of “providing assistance to the families of those killed and citizens affected by the terrorist attack in Beslan in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania on September 1-3, 2004.”
Otherwise, the agenda of the government meeting did not change. As planned, cabinet members will review the progress of railway transport reform. Transport Minister Igor Levitin will make a presentation. In essence, this issue is non-conflicting, unlike other structural reforms. And therefore the leadership of the Cabinet of Ministers is not allergic to its consideration. In contrast to the reform of the electric power industry, which is in a semi-frozen state, and the reform of the gas industry, which is not even included in the government’s immediate plans.
The agenda for Thursday's cabinet meeting does not include issues of increasing funding for security forces, although there are discussions about this. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said yesterday that “the volume of budget funds allocated to the security forces can be clarified.” However, despite the fact that the cabinet leadership speaks out for the need to finance “strengthening the country’s security,” there are no plans to allocate funds for this purpose from other budget items. The same goes for money from the stabilization fund. Ivan GORDEEV |
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