Last week Sverdlovsk Region struggled to keep fires away from towns, but nature was stronger and the region lost one of the small settlements in fire. Authorities of Yamal checked out cases of wasteful spending of money by healthcare officials. Mayor’s elections in Surgut continue to bring the interests of federal and local business structures in confrontation. Read more in the weekly expert report by FederalPress.
Last week Sverdlovsk Region struggled to keep fires away from towns, but nature was stronger and the region lost one of the small settlements in fire. Authorities of Yamal checked out cases of wasteful spending of money by healthcare officials. Mayor’s elections in Surgut continue to bring the interests of federal and local business structures in confrontation. Read more in the weekly expert report by FederalPress.
Corruption cases in Yamal
Konstantin Chuichenko, head of controlling department of the President’s Administration, submitted a survey report to Dmitry Medvedev conveying 17 criminal cases against healthcare officials. According to the national project in healthcare, the government allocated money to buy tomographic scanners for the hospitals of the country.
However, in many cases this equipment was purchased at unreasonably high prices. The Russian President said it was “impudent robbery of the state money”.
Thus, reporters of UralPolit.Ru learnt it was planned to buy tomographic scanners at 80 million rubles per item in Labytnangi, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, whereas market price at that time was under 40 million rubles. Today that same hospital expects to buy this equipment at 35 million rubles per item with the market price not exceeding 20 millions.
“It is important to notice that during the national project in healthcare on Yamal lots of medical equipment was purchased which now is hardly used. Because it is literary out-of-date. Head doctors and directors of the medical establishments had no choice – there was so much pressure on them from higher authorities. Something like, buy now and at high prices. Now one can find much better equipment which is two times less expensive in the market”, Nikolay Parkhomchuk, Yamal’s labor union association chairman, shared his view on the topic.
Mayor’s elections in Surgut
Surgut has become an arena for one of the most dramatic elective campaigns in the Ural Federal District. There are 13 candidates for the position of the mayor of Surgut. Local citizens and companies favor Dmitry Popov, who currently is human resources department director at Surguteftegas JSC.
Dmitry Popov’s serious opponent is vice-mayor of Surgut Roman Markov, who represents interests of Moscow financial structures. Territorial election commission has rejected Roman Markov’s elections application, but he appealed it in court.
Consulting Company “Bakster Group” board of directors chairman Dmitry Gusev comments:
“The main intrigue of the elections is the fact that old mayor goes and his successor is a banker from Moscow Roman Markov. All those business structures behind his name try to get control in the city. The question is who wins: Moscow business or interests of the citizens whose life is intervened with Surgut and its enterprises.”
Forest fires
Forest fires burnt one of Sverdlovsk Region’s towns to ashes. The small town of Vizhai is located in the north of Sverdlovsk Region and has been destroyed by fire on August 11, 2010.
Governor of the region Alexander Misharin and regional minister of natural resources Yury Trutnev visited the site the day before it was destroyed. They supervised fire extinguishing works. All dwellers of the town were evacuated.
Political scientist Viktoria Panova says it is always extremely difficult to confront natural disasters like earthquakes, tornados, floods and fires. “Maximum we can do is to avoid human losses or minimize damage”.
“Secondly, governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin spent the whole week in the hottest spots of the region including Vizhai. As a result, people of the town are getting keys from new apartments already. It is also determined that every person who lost home in fire will get 100 thousand rubles of reimbursement.”
Evgeny Roizman, president of City without Drugs Foundation, adds:
“Burnt Vizhai is not the worst thing… Now the situation is more complex around the town of Losiny. Fire approach from dense forests and peats, but the town has no water resources to fight it.”
Anti-corruption measures in South Urals
Last week RIA FederalPress held two round table discussions under the project of anti-crisis policy of Chelyabinsk Region. On August 11th political experts and mass media representatives discussed information policy of the regional authorities. On August 13th FederalPress invited representatives from the law enforcement structures to talk about corruption.
“Main corruption interests concentrate in the sphere of state property management and bankruptcy of enterprises”, Chelyabinsk Region FSS department director Sergey Staritsin acknowledged.
Chelyabinsk Region senator Ruslan Gattarov explained the connection between reduction of corruption and development of blogs in the Internet. “Information society develops at a very high speed. Today everything is viewed through the prism of openness and accessibility.”
“For the state power to become less corrupted, it has to be more open. First of all, each step must be described. Secondly, if a power official describes his work in the blog, he has to take responsibility for his words. No axe can cut out what a pen has written about. One can’t deny his own words. Many officials hate the idea of blogging, because they are so afraid to take responsibility.”
Celebrations in Tyumen Region
Tyumen Region celebrated 66 years since the date of its foundation. President’s plenipotentiary envoy in the Ural Federal District Nikolay Vinnichenko and governors of neighboring territories came for the celebrations.
Governor of Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District (Yugra) Natalia Komarova told an old Khanty legend to underline long-term connection of regions in Western Siberia. The story represents Yamal and Yugra as elder brothers and Tyumen Region as a younger sister in one family.
Indeed, three regions enjoy quite easy relations and have developed constructive collaboration.
Russian Public Opinion Research Center Ural Division Director Vladimir Grishin noticed that regional authorities did not make any grandiose events to celebrate the date. Current social situation in the region is very stable and fully predictable. “I am sure we will see this kind of stability on the 67th and the 68th anniversaries, too.”