Genre photo. An artist paints St.Basil Cathedral, Moscow.
Photo: Dmitry Kostyukov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Moscow Is the Capital of Russia, Finance Ministry Acknowledged
Russia’s Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov ordered to transfer 3.3 billion rubles to Moscow to settle the federal budget’s arrears due to city for performing the capital’s functions in 2004. Moscow authorities estimate the debt at 30 billion rubles but are delighted to get even some portion of money – Moscow has been in clashes with federal center about the debt amount since 1992.
On December 14, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov sealed a ruling to pay 3.3 billion rubles to Moscow to settle the arrears for executing metropolis functions in 2004. This payment is the first achievement of the city in clashes with federal authorities that began far back in 1992.
The Moscow City Hall hailed Fradkov’s decision, the more so that it meant ready money instead of the assets. “The Federal Budget has cleared all debts due to Moscow for transfers,” Vice Mayor Yury Roslyak said yesterday.
The Federal Budget’s transfers to be made for performing metropolis functions are spelled out in the Act on the Capital Status. Roughly 10 billion rubles was annually appropriated for this purpose from early 1990s, but Moscow always received only a half of amount and not as the real money but as stocks of some state-run enterprises. So, the federal debt exceeded 20 billion rubles by 2004, Moscow estimated.
But Finance Ministry didn’t acknowledge the debt, viewing Moscow as the donor region and linking the issue to the split of the Moscow assets into municipal and federal ones. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, Moscow seized a raft of estates that lost the state owner, rebuilt them for its own account and leased in the next move. In 2001, however, the federal authorities attempted to make Moscow return more than a thousand premises to the federal ownership.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 19, 2006
|
|
|
