Neither the Kremlin nor the governors backed up the United Russia's intention to strip of money RAO UES CEO Anatoly Chubais.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Duma Doesn’t Like Chubais Again
Russia’s State Duma passed 2007 budget bill in the second reading yesterday. The key intrigue was an abortive attempt of the United Russia to strip RAO UES of 30 billion rubles.
The lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, peacefully passed the 2007 draft budget in the second reading Wednesday. The deputies had studied over 300 amendments when getting ready for discussion and had taken into consideration 185 of them.
In particular, the Budget Committee trimmed spending under the National Issues by 10.6 billion rubles (mostly spending of the state machinery), increasing other budget costs for their account, including funding national economy, housing and communal services (2.3 billion rubles), inter-budget transfer (2.5 billion rubles), social policy.
Actually, the United Russia’s faction of the State Duma attempted to redistribute for social needs not 10 billion rubles but more than 40 billion rubles. The deputies suggested stripping RAO UES of 30 billon rubles designated to reform power engineering, i.e. to step up the state ownership in Federal Grid Co., System Operator and HydroWGC.
But neither the Kremlin nor the governors backed up that desire of the United Russia, said sources with the State Duma. Off-the-record, president’s administration chief Sergey Sobyanin is said to have personally called State Duma’s Speaker Boris Gryzlov to cool social agitation of deputies.
The reasons of today’s clashes of State Duma’s Speaker Boris Gryzlov and RAO UES CEO Anatoly Chubais are yet unknown. But for the State Duma, the dislike of Chubais is a matter of tradition already. Legislators had attempted to make him resign dozens of times even before the United Russia came to power in parliament.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 12, 2006
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