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Ramzan Kadyrov prepared a program for the restoration of Chechnya

Yesterday, Prime Minister of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov spoke about his next project for the accelerated post-war reconstruction of the republic. This time we are talking about the draft program for the socio-economic development of Chechnya for 2008-2011. The project, according to the prime minister, will be ready in the coming weeks and then sent for approval to the relevant federal authorities. They, Mr. Kadyrov hopes, will give the project the status of a federal target program. The project cost of the four-year program is 180.6 billion rubles. Of these, 142.3 billion will fall to the share of the federal center, the remaining 38.3 billion will be taken from Chechnya’s own revenues. Thus, Ramzan Kadyrov is counting on federal funding for the republic in the amount of 35.5 billion rubles. per year.

This is not the first time that the Chechen leadership has asked the federal authorities to increase allocations for reconstruction. The funds that are allocated and then actually reach actual construction sites in Chechnya are obviously not enough to cope in the foreseeable future with the colossal amount of destruction and the lagging standard of living and income in the former war zone from the average in Russia. The federal authorities are afraid to give a lot because they are afraid of theft both in Chechnya itself and along the way from Moscow. As a result, what they do give is “smeared in a thin layer” over numerous objects that cannot be delivered from year to year. Out of despair, the energetic Prime Minister Kadyrov even invests his own funds in Chechen construction projects, but not without counting on their return.

Grozny proposed changing the situation in different ways. Back in 2003, experts from the President of the Republic, Akhmat Kadyrov, wrote a draft Agreement on the division of powers between Moscow and Chechnya. It was the first time that the idea of ​​long-term tax holidays and the transfer to Chechnya of all rights to use and dispose of natural resources, including oil, was voiced. This categorically did not suit Moscow. As a result, the agreement has not yet been signed, and instead of it, already this year a bill on the fundamentals of entrepreneurial activity in Chechnya appeared, which, in fact, repeated the same requirements.

The current project, unlike the previous two, is not so ambitious. Mr. Kadyrov himself says that the new program is being written instead of the existing Federal Target Program for the restoration of the economy and social sphere of Chechnya, which expires in 2007. In Grozny they are afraid that many of the facilities included in the program will not be put into operation by the end of 2007. These include two famous long-term construction projects, which are supposed to become almost the locomotives of the regional economy: a sugar factory in Argun and a cement factory in Chiri-Yurt. Under the current program, Chechnya receives about 5.2 billion rubles. per year, and with colossal delays: the first tranches of 2006 arrived literally yesterday. And in previous years, the transfer of money could occur at the end of December - in fact, this meant the need to return it to the treasury, because it was unrealistic to use it in the last days of the financial year. But at the same time, the total amount of financing for Chechnya from the federal pocket has always been several times larger: in addition to the Federal Target Program, there are direct budget subsidies, various extra-budgetary funds, investments from natural monopolies, etc. In total, this figure in 2004 amounted to about 30 billion rubles.

On the other hand, 2004 turned out to be the peak of financing for the restoration of Chechnya. In Moscow, the opinion is becoming increasingly widespread that since the war is over, the republic should not lay claim to exceptional amounts of funding and may well join the ranks of other North Caucasian regions (among them, only Dagestan can now be compared with Chechnya in terms of the volume of annual federal investments).

However, Mr. Kadyrov’s project hardly envisages Chechnya’s refusal of other forms of federal assistance or the consolidation of all of them “under the heading” of a new socio-economic development program. If the arithmetic of Chechen officials is this, it means that they are proposing to increase the current reconstruction program sevenfold. It is unlikely that such a formulation of the issue will meet with approval in Moscow or the Southern Federal District. However, the year of the start of the program conceived by Ramzan Kadyrov - 2008 - is still outside the predicted political future of all of Russia and Chechnya itself. It is no secret that the plans of her prime minister depend entirely on the personal favor of Vladimir Putin, who refuses to hold his post for more than two consecutive terms.

Ivan SUKHOV