Railway logic

Vladimir Yakunin appointed President of Russian Railways

Russian railways yesterday found a new president - Vladimir Yakunin, who until now held the post of first vice-president of Russian Railways. Former leader Gennady Fadeev became an assistant to Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. The issue of such a reshuffle has been discussed since the transformation of the Ministry of Railways into Russian Railways in 2003, but then it was decided to leave Mr. Fadeev. At that time, it was difficult to say what the transformation would result in, and therefore immediately putting Mr. Yakunin at the head of the company - a native of St. Petersburg, a career Soviet intelligence officer, who is believed to know Vladimir Putin closely - was was apparently considered premature. Now the course of the reform has become more or less clear. Today - on the eve of the meeting of the company's shareholders, which will be held on June 30 by approving the directives of the Cabinet of Ministers - the government at its meeting plans to discuss the progress of reforms and, apparently, implement one of the points of the reform - the restructuring of industry management.

Gennady Fadeev's resignation was predicted in 2003 for several reasons. Firstly, he is a relative of the former disgraced Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Aksenenko, although he is loyal to the St. Petersburg team. Secondly, he already worked as the head of the Ministry of Railways for quite a long time - from 1992 to 1996, and then from January 2002 (after the resignation of Mr. Aksenenko). And thirdly, Mr. Fadeev is already at an advanced age (he is now 68 years old). The main argument for his appointment as president of Russian Railways was the fact that Mr. Fadeev devoted his entire life to the railway, which means he is a qualified specialist who can be entrusted with at least the first stages of transformation in the industry.

Mr. Yakunin (he will turn 57 on June 30), on the contrary, had no direct connection with the railway until February 2002, although he had been Deputy Minister of Transport since October 2000. However, Mr. Yakunin’s chances for a serious promotion have long been assessed very highly: it was his candidacy that many predicted for the post of president of Russian Railways in 2003, then (in the same year) for the post of head of the Kremlin administration (after the resignation of Alexander Voloshin), and last spring year - and to the post of prime minister.

Meanwhile, the transformation at Russian Railways is far from complete, as evidenced by the criticism of the company's vice-president Anna Belova to the government regarding the delay in reform. In April, she stated that “Russian Railways, for its part, has taken all necessary measures to ensure non-discriminatory access of independent operators to services,” however, the documents prepared by the company, without which “the creation of full-fledged carriers and the development of competition in the field of freight and passenger rail transportation is very problematic,” officials have not yet approved it.

In addition, administrative reform has started at Russian Railways since the beginning of this year. Mr. Yakunin in January explained it by the need to simplify the management of the company, eliminate duplication of functions and reduce the bloated staff. A plan was prepared for restructuring the financial block of Russian Railways: according to a Vremya Novostey source familiar with its contents, it was planned to transfer a number of structures reporting directly to Mr. Fadeev (treasury department, accounting department, control and internal audit center for railway transport, and also CFTO and Roszheldorsnab, which are supervised by the deputy head of the company, Khasyan Zyabirov, who is close to the now former president of Russian Railways), under the responsibility of the first vice president. Thus, the reform made it possible to strengthen the role of Mr. Yakunin in Russian Railways. A continuation of this step was the resignation of Mr. Fadeev.

Now the new president of Russian Railways is faced with the task of completing the second stage of industry reform and starting the third. The main thing to be done is to sell some of the subsidiaries of Russian Railways to investors, thereby creating competition in the industry. But as experts from the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) told government officials a year ago, “Russian Railways, as a profit-oriented company, has no incentive to create competition for its services,” which means the government should take the initiative. And Mr. Yakunin will do approximately the same thing that Anatoly Chubais is now ordered to do in another natural monopoly - RAO UES: maintain and develop economic activities.

Nikolay GORELOV