| A grain crisis has broken out in Kamchatka The grain crisis that broke out in Kamchatka on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the August putsch turned out to be artificial. Last Friday, the regional prosecutor's office initiated an investigation into the reasons for the sharp rise in prices for bread and flour products, and the governor of the Kamchatka region, Mikhail Mashkovtsev, said that residents of the peninsula were faced with “outright blackmail and collusion by bakery enterprises.”
Regional authorities turned to the antimonopoly service with a request to find out the reasons for such a sharp increase in prices for essential products. The cost of a loaf of bread on the peninsula on August 1, after another increase in pensions, increased by almost a third. Now instead of 15--17 rubles. a loaf of white bread costs 20-23 rubles.
Manufacturers of bakery products claim that they were simply forced to raise prices for their products. After the regional authorities stopped providing benefits for electricity payments on July 1, the cost of electricity for Kamchatka bakers increased from 1 to 4 rubles. per kilowatt/hour. Mr. Mashkovtsev cites the order of the Russian Ministry of Finance as the reason that prompted him to cancel the subsidy for bread producers. “Our bakers, taking advantage of this, decided to sharply increase bread prices. The cost of the increase is 20--30 kopecks. That’s how much they would raise,” the regional governor comments on the actions of businessmen.
Meanwhile, as Oksana Arkhipova, director of one of the bread producing companies, told Vremya Novostei, in addition to the increase in electricity tariffs, bakers were also faced with an increase in the cost of the transport component. From July 1, after railway workers once again increased the tariff for container transportation by approximately 30%, the delivery of a kilogram of flour from Novosibirsk to the port of Vanino in the Khabarovsk Territory increased in price by 80 kopecks. Plus, the tariff for sea transportation of cargo to Kamchatka has increased.
At the beginning of last week, Kamchatka entrepreneurs and the city department of social protection took an unprecedented step. Pensioners and low-income citizens were invited to receive special coupons, which would allow people to purchase baked goods at a significant discount at trade kiosks and stores. Old people and the poor could buy a white loaf not for 23 rubles, but for 14-15 rubles.
The initiative to introduce coupons was made by the head of the Petropavlovsk Department of Social Protection of the Population, Mikhail Puchkovsky, who is also the head of the Kamchatka branch of the Pensioners Party. In his opinion, only in this way “could the elderly be saved.” According to Mr. Puchkovsky, the social protection department allocated 15 coupons per family - at the rate of half a loaf per person per day. At the regional social security offices, long queues immediately formed of old people wanting to receive the coveted coupons.
It is not surprising that for many Kamchatka residents the bread lines reminded the system of food distribution in the early 90s of the last century. The Kamchatka governor, at a press conference on the bread crisis in the region, said that the practice of distributing bread coupons is nothing more than a carefully planned PR campaign directed against the regional authorities. Literally the next day, the mayor of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Vladislav Skvortsov, issued an order prohibiting the circulation of previously issued bread cards and the issuance of new coupons. The initiator of issuing coupons, Mikhail Puchkovsky, was severely reprimanded for unauthorized activity.
Mr. Skvortsov also emphasized that, in his opinion, “confusing the concept of a municipal official and a member of any party with any name is unacceptable.” The coupons, according to the mayor, were introduced by his subordinates (in particular, employees of the department of social support of the city population) completely illegally. However, until the end of August, the three largest bread producers in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky will sell their products to pensioners, disabled people and large families at reduced prices. True, not with cards, but with pension certificates or other documents giving the right to a discount when buying bread. Kamchatka authorities and entrepreneurs are now looking for opportunities to reduce bread prices. The regional and city administrations hope that businessmen will accommodate the poor of Kamchatka and maintain benefits for pensioners. Ilya SERGEEV, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky |
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