Chechen idyll

Moscow will raise the republic’s managerial elite

Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko named “five key tasks” facing the government in Chechnya. The main task this year, Mr. Khristenko said, speaking to State Duma deputies, is to create conditions for the return of refugees to Chechnya. RUB 1.3 billion has been allocated for the restoration of housing in rural areas and the overhaul of houses in Grozny, Argun and Gudermes. It is planned to attract about 14 thousand Chechens who will receive wages for repairing their houses. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, work will begin in a month, during which the “mechanism for housing restoration” will be approved. In addition, it is planned to organize temporary accommodation centers for citizens currently located outside the republic. In the first half of the year, approximately 7 thousand people will be able to return to Chechnya, and in the second half - twice as many.

Meanwhile, more than 200 thousand homeless people live in Chechnya today. There are 148 thousand registered refugees in Ingushetia, and, according to the Ingush branch of the Ministry of Federation, another 20-30 thousand unregistered. They do not intend to return home, as the head of this department, Magomed Gireev, said yesterday in an interview with ITAR-TASS, “until there is stabilization and security in Chechnya.” However, the government will also take care of those who remain outside the borders of Chechnya: approximately 500 million rubles will be allocated for the maintenance of all camps.

The remaining “key tasks” are well known. This is the restoration of basic life support systems, public utilities, and transport networks (2.4 billion rubles have been allocated for these purposes); provision of social guarantees - payment of salaries to public sector employees, pensions, child benefits (approximately 2 billion rubles); restoration of basic sectors of the economy of Chechnya, primarily energy (more than 4 billion). And the last task, without the solution of which, according to Mr. Khristenko, “it is impossible to complete all the previous ones,” is the formation of a judicial system, the development of a program of action for law enforcement agencies (the government has allocated about 650 million rubles for this).

In the Deputy Prime Minister’s speech yesterday, it was said for the first time that “these tasks will and should be solved not only, and perhaps not so much by Moscow or the regions of Russia, but also by the new managerial elite of Chechnya.” In this regard, Mr. Khristenko highlighted “the special goal and task of the program - the training of national personnel for the economic and social complex of the republic.” It is planned to annually send, he emphasized, hundreds of students in key sectors to universities in Russia and Chechnya. Very soon, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, “the center’s approach to the socio-economic situation in Chechnya will not differ much from the established approach to solving problems in other regions, for example, in Kaluga or Chita.”

The Deputy Prime Minister forgot to tell how the government intends to restore what the militants blow up. However, the deputies did not ask him about this.

Natalia GORODETSKAYA