| Railway workers and power engineers do not understand each other The reconciliation of mutual debts carried out by the Ministry of Railways and RAO UES of Russia yielded unusually contradictory results. Employees of the two departments now disagree not only about the amount of debt, but also about whether the reconciliation was carried out at all.
The heads of the conflicting natural monopolies, Nikolai Aksenenko and Anatoly Chubais, agreed to carry out this operation at their meeting on August 24. They planned to complete the reconciliation by September 1.
On Knowledge Day, the media relations department of RAO UES of Russia reported that complete clarity had finally been achieved on the slippery issue of debt. According to a message distributed by the department, railway workers and energy workers agreed that the former owe the latter 3.2 billion rubles, and the latter owe the first 1.025 billion rubles. The overall balance thus turns out to be very close to the figures that RAO has been defending from the very beginning of the debt debate.
RAO "UES of Russia", through its press service, confirmed the previously reached agreements on the gradual repayment of the railway workers' debt before April 1, 2001, on 100% payment of mutual financial obligations in "real" money, and also reported that the Ministry of Railways has already contributed 560 million towards its debt rub.
All this could be regarded as a clear victory for the energy workers over their opponents, the railway workers, if the latter, for their part, also publicly acknowledged the figures disseminated by RAO.
But the press service of the Ministry of Railways assured the correspondent of the Vremya Novostey newspaper on September 1 that no reconciliation had actually taken place, since RAO had not submitted the necessary documents to the ministry. The travel press workers also found it difficult to predict when the reconciliation of mutual debts will take place.
The day before September 1, the press service of the Ministry of Railways issued its own message regarding the problem of debts to energy workers. It also mentions that the two departments decided to pay each other exclusively in money. In addition, the Ministry of Railways reports that RAO UES of Russia undertakes to compensate the railway department for expenses in the amount of 416 million rubles that arose due to an increase in electricity tariffs in 2000. Regarding its own debts, the Ministry of Railways only indicates that it intends to pay them, but does not name the exact amount. Mikhail KUKUSHKIN |
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