| Moscow demands through court rent for government offices The Moscow authorities, outraged by the federal claims to the capital's most attractive real estate, decided to set an example of civilized conflict resolution and went to court. As the head of the complex of economic policy and city development, Yuri Roslyak, said yesterday, Moscow is not only ready to defend the right to dispose of its property in the Constitutional Court, but also intends to sue the Ministry of Finance for more than 2.5 billion rubles. rent for the feds' use of downtown buildings. It is this amount, according to Mr. Roslyak, that the Ministry of Finance owes Moscow for eight months of this year under lease agreements. “According to the law, rent arrears for two quarters are sufficient grounds for debt collection, and we have already filed relevant claims in court,” recalled the deputy mayor.
Let us remind you that the mayor’s office tried to negotiate relations with the federal institutions that “occupied” all the buildings all last year. And an agreement was even reached that instead of subventions for the performance of capital functions, the Ministry of Finance would pay rent to Moscow for occupied city real estate. However, not a penny was received into the city budget. Moreover, the head of the Ministry of Finance, Alexei Kudrin, initiated amendments to the law on the division of powers between the center and the regions, obliging the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to transfer buildings occupied by government agencies into federal ownership free of charge. For which he recently earned an angry rebuke from Yuri Luzhkov, who accused the minister of “treachery,” “robespierreism,” and “Bolshevism.” Yuri Roslyak explained yesterday why the mayor practically does not mince words when it comes to such a painful issue. According to him, according to the most conservative estimates, Moscow could lose 2 million square meters of office buildings in the very center of the capital.
However, the deputy mayor is confident that this will not happen - officials from the mayor's office have no doubt about victory in the Constitutional Court. True, Mr. Roslyak admitted that the only weak point in Moscow’s position remains the issue of rental rates that is not regulated by law. According to the official, when concluding an agreement with the Ministry of Finance, the mayor's office used the federal calculation method, but it can be challenged in court.
It is noteworthy that so far the capital has managed to repel federal attacks on the most attractive buildings in the center of the capital. True, the struggle for architectural monuments of federal significance, including the house of the Governor General on Tverskaya, 13, which now houses the Moscow City Hall, lasted several years. During the sometimes very hysterical negotiations, the Moscow government managed to peacefully share all the monuments with the Ministry of Culture, but formally the issue of registering the city's ownership of the reclaimed real estate, it turns out, has still not been resolved. “At the federal level, everyone agrees to sign the agreed documents, but no one has the courage. In fact, neither the Ministry of Economic Development nor the Ministry of Culture today has the desire to complete this work, and no one cares about the condition of the monuments,” Mr. Roslyak said yesterday.
In the next two years, Muscovites should not be afraid of the introduction of 100 percent payment for utility services. This statement was made yesterday by the Deputy Mayor of Moscow, head of the economic policy and development complex, Yuri Roslyak. He recalled that in the capital, housing and communal services costs are much higher than the national average, so Moscow, even under Boris Yeltsin, defended the right to independently determine the pace of utility reform. Recalling that today Muscovites pay about 56% of the real cost of utilities, Mr. Roslyak said that next year the increase in tariffs will be about 20-25%. New tariffs will be approved at the beginning of 2006 and will not change during the year. "TIME FOR NEWS" Alexander GUDKOV |
|
