| Russia prepared for winter worse than last year The State Duma yesterday became preoccupied with the most popular seasonal topic - the upcoming winter cold. The head of the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing and Communal Services, Sergei Kruglik, made a report on the readiness of the housing and communal services for work in the autumn-winter period.
Reports by officials on the topic of preparations for winter have become a Duma tradition in recent years. Actually, the process of insulation itself began to attract special attention from statesmen after part of the northern regions almost froze over in 2000. Then the Ministry of Energy and other departments began to check the readiness of the regions for the change of seasons. Everyone traditionally lacked funds to purchase fuel, but even after extracting additional “winter” money from the federal center, the regions were not always able to obtain fuel. In 2001, the biggest concern was a shortage of fuel oil for power plants. And the mayor of Moscow announced a campaign to save energy resources: gas, electricity, water and heat.
In 2002, the main emphasis was placed on putting housing and communal services systems in order; billions of rubles of additional assistance were “spread” across the regions. But the very next year, money began to be distributed point-by-point, “to the places with the greatest accident risk,” as then Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said.
In 2004, in the process of preparing for winter, not only the problem of increasing fuel prices, but also the prospects for the arrival of private capital in the housing and communal services sector began to be discussed. Over the past year, however, there has not been an increase in this area. Last year, the then head of Rosstroi, Vladimir Averchenko, speaking about the state of the housing and communal services sector on the eve of the winter cold and stating that boiler houses, heating and water supply networks are no more than half ready for winter, cited illiteracy and political populism of local authorities as the reason. The most problematic regions then turned out to be the Arkhangelsk Region, Altai Territory, Koryak and Nenets Autonomous Okrugs.
This year, as Sergei Kruglik said yesterday in the Duma, Russian regions prepared for the heating season even worse than in the past. According to him, “although the regions allocated 10 billion rubles more to prepare for the heating season than last year, there are now 200 million square meters less housing ready for the cold compared to 2004.” One of the main reasons for this state of affairs, according to Mr. Kruglik, is that “housing and communal services enterprises have accumulated 315 million rubles of accounts payable, which is primarily due to the rise in fuel prices.” The head of Rosstroi explained that “the regions budgeted funds for the purchase of fuel for the winter period in the amount of 2-2.5 thousand rubles per ton, but now prices have risen to 6-6.5 thousand rubles per ton.”
Sergei Kruglik also promised that there will be no sharp increases in tariffs in the housing and communal services sector in 2006. In turn, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and High Technologies Martin Shakkum proposed introducing a moratorium on increasing tariffs for housing and communal services. “We believe that this industry is unprofitable, the increase in tariffs has no effect on the development of housing and communal services,” he said, backing up his opinion with figures: in the first half of 2005, housing and communal services enterprises spent 721 billion rubles, while 714 billion came from the population. “The development of housing and communal services at the expense of the population is impossible, it is a huge black hole,” Mr. Shakkum emphasized.
Viktor Vidmanov, speaking from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation faction, proposed completely restoring the centralized vertical management system for housing and communal services, as well as allocating an additional 50 billion rubles for the needs of housing and communal services this year and 500(!) billion next year.
Apparently, imbued with the topic of preparing for the cold, the deputies finally rejected the bill “On the ban on the sale and distribution of drinks containing tonic ingredients,” which was submitted to the chamber for consideration on the initiative of the LDPR faction. In vain did deputy Alexei Ostrovsky convince his colleagues that “tonic drinks cause enormous harm to the health of citizens.” Deputy of the United Russia faction Yuri Medvedev, speaking from the relevant committee on economic policy, entrepreneurship and tourism, said that “by analogy with tonic drinks, it is possible to impose a ban on the distribution of the absolute majority of food products, since their excessive consumption, as a rule, causes negative consequences for person." As a result, with the required 226 votes, only 120 deputies voted for the bill banning energy drinks. Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA, |
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