City plan

Yuri Luzhkov approved the socio-economic priorities of the capital until 2010

On the eve of the transfer of the capital's housing stock directly into the hands of apartment owners, the Moscow authorities admitted that a significant part of the buildings in the city were hopelessly neglected. Despite the fact that Muscovites for the most part regularly pay for utilities, 2% of which should be allocated for major repairs, reconstruction work will require considerable budgetary injections. As the mayor of the city, Yuri Luzhkov, said yesterday at a regular meeting of the capital’s government, the money with which “law-abiding citizens have been paying for major repairs for many years” was not used for its intended purpose. “The state selected them for other purposes,” the mayor admitted.

Let us remind you that by the end of this year Muscovites must choose a management company themselves , and from January 1 to May 2008, capital officials will select building managers on a competitive basis for those who have not decided on their own. After transferring the housing stock to the balance of private companies or homeowners' associations, the city will have to reimburse the new business owners for debts for major repairs that were never made.

The authorities promise not to bring the situation to a crisis, having made the overhaul of apartment buildings one of the priorities of their socio-economic policy. In any case, Mr. Luzhkov proposed yesterday to allocate about 326 billion rubles for these purposes over the next 5-7 years. And, according to the head of the Moscow Department of Finance, Yuri Korostelev, “significant funds” for major repairs will be included in the 2008 budget. True, the generosity of the Moscow government, according to the mayor, will only affect the municipal fund. However, it is possible that when approving repair costs, city deputies will put in a good word for the owners of privatized apartments. In particular, the chairman of the budget and financial commission of the Moscow City Duma, Igor Antonov, believes that the authorities should not create unnecessary social tension by blindly following the provisions of the Housing Code, which, as is known, abolished the obligations of municipalities to overhaul privately owned premises.

As for other socio-economic priorities of the capital’s authorities, in addition to major repairs, Yuri Luzhkov highlighted support for low-income citizens and equalization of incomes. Since the mayor has not yet been able to implement the idea of ​​returning to five-year planning (“Not everything that happened before is bad,” he noted yesterday), Mr. Luzhkov was forced to operate with figures and forecasts only for the next three years. According to calculations by the Department of Economic Policy, if the growth of the gross regional product observed in the last five-year period of 9.8% per year is maintained, by 2010 the resources of the most affluent city in Russia will double and amount to more than a trillion rubles. In such conditions, the mayor called for continued adherence to a socially oriented budget. Since, according to officials, “oligarchs will not stop being born,” the mayor’s office was asked to fight to preserve the “civilized framework” of the stratification of society, improving the living standards of poor Muscovites.

In particular, if in 2006 the city spent more than 70 billion rubles on wages for state employees, then in 2007 expenses on this item will increase by 44%, and they will increase by 46% in 2008. In 2010, officials believe, city treasury expenses on wages should amount to 245 billion rubles. It is then, according to the optimistic forecasts of the head of the department of economic policy and city development, Marina Ogloblina, that the minimum wage for a public sector employee will reach the subsistence level.

True, city residents will have to spend much more. In the next five years, according to the Department of Economic Policy and Development, tariffs for housing and communal services will increase by an average of 20% annually, and by 2011 they will double. True, the city will maintain a system of benefits and subsidies for the low-income strata of Moscow society.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO