Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets Civil Dignity Chairperson Ella Pamfilova, left, and other human rights activists in the Kremlin, July 20, 2005.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Public Chamber Splits State Money
Russia's Public Chamber needed around an hour yesterday to distribute 500 million rubles allocated from the federal budget to back up nongovernmental organizations (NGO). Half of the amount will go to the social projects implemented by public institutions; the remaining 250 million rubles will be spent to strengthen their material and technical base. Having yielded to the financial backup of the government, the NGOs will ultimately loose independence, forecast public officials, who withdrew from the funds distribution.
Russia’s Public Chamber shed light on the actual distribution of 500 million rubles during the yesterday’s forum of Regional Public Chambers and associations. The better part of the money will go to organizations that are members of the Regional Public Chambers. Almost everywhere, such organizations work under the governor’s supervision and their activities are coordinated by local authorities.
“We have canvassed the NGO financing in ten regions of Russia,” said Maria Slobodskaya, who chairs the RF Public Chamber’s commission for civil society development. “Only two public organizations spoke against the state support, as they didn’t want to be controlled by authorities. Others raised no questions.”
Members of the Public Chamber expressed no objections to the budget financing yesterday. To the contrary, spokesman of regional NGOs turned out “willing to be embedded in the power vertical via the Public Chamber,” and called for the faster distribution of money, as “the inflation has eaten 10 percent since early this year.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 26, 2006
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