Regional Duma had to gather for an extraordinary meeting to make amendments to the budget of the region. Deputies also disagreed with the government’s initiative to cancel transport preferences for vulnerable groups, but still did not provide any money to cover these expenses. Several cases of corruption were disclosed for public last week. Learn more in the weekly review by FederalPress.
Regional Duma had to gather for an extraordinary meeting to make amendments to the budget of the region. Deputies also disagreed with the government’s initiative to cancel transport preferences for vulnerable groups, but still did not provide any money to cover these expenses. Several cases of corruption were disclosed for public last week. Learn more in the weekly review by FederalPress.
Budgeting
Regional Legislative Assembly of Primorsky Region had to gather for an extraordinary meeting to decide upon new amendments of the budget. Earnings of the region grew by 3.5 billion rubles due to tax and non-tax income and federal money. Therefore budget spending was also increased by 2.7 billion rubles.
Currently, Primorsky Region budget earnings account for 71.9 billion rubles, expenses make 94.8 billions with the budget deficit of 22.9 billion rubles. Due to the latest amendments the deficit was reduced by 800 million rubles.
Most important issues to invest state money are housing and road repair. Thus, the regional government will spend about one billion rubles to prepare the region’s infrastructure for the heating winter season.
Road repair works on 240 sites have also been planned for next year. There is a federal law that guides regional authorities to collect claims and suggestions from the population and make sure these wishes are fulfilled. 443 million rubles will be spent to fix roads on sites identified by people.
Federal preferences
Administration of the region and Legislative Assembly are disputing about transport preferences certain categories of people are eligible to. Regional government allocates money to all such people, but usually additional payments also came in from the federal budget.
Last year federal budget stopped allocating money for transport preferences and the regional government in turn stopped payment although there is a legal act still in action. Regional deputies refused to cancel this act even though there is no money on the budget plan to spend on these preferences.
“The money was allotted to make transport preferences even between vulnerable groups provided for by the region and by the federation. Now actually we have to reimburse federal groups two times”, regional finance department director Tatyana Kazantseva says.
Anti-corruption work
Last week a number of corruption cases were disclosed in various spheres of social life.
The head of special fire extinguishing division Felix Kartavtsev was accused of abuse of power, abuse of trust, and theft. The man is said to have stolen over 420 thousand rubles with the help of an associate.
Another case was presented by the senior assistant prosecutor of Primorsky Region Elena Telegina. She reported, general practitioner and head of medical division of a city hospital signed medical examination papers for money.
According to law, people are required to go through a medical examination before they can get their driver’s license. Doctors at the hospital signed necessary papers for a number of people who did not actually go through the examination for a bribe. Both doctors were taken in by the militia right after false documents were issued. They were sentenced to over three years of imprisonment conditionally and were denied the right to conduct medical practice for a period of one and a half years.
Primorsky Region division of court bailiff service reported results of internal check for corrupt employees. In the first six months of 2010 25 cases of violations made by bailiffs were disclosed and 21 criminal cases of fraud and forgery by an official were started. A number of bailiffs have been caught appropriating the money debtors paid to cover their arrears.