Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin openly expressed his opinion about the state asset claims of Rostekhnologii.
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin
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Finance Minister Unmasked Covert Privatization
Russia’s Vice Premier and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has suspected Rostekhnologii in the attempt to draw away budget revenues and carry out covert privatization of federal assets transferred to the state corporation.
The term given to departments by Russia’s First Vice Premier Igor Shuvalov to submit to the government the elaborated president’s decree on Russia’s contribution to Rostekhnologii expired yesterday, June 9, 2008. But the document still requires agreement, mostly due to the tough opposition of Vice Premier and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
The demand of finance minister is to cross out of the list of government’s assets transferred to Rostekhnologii the enterprises of civil branches of industry, the shares owned by the RF in joint ventures overseas as well as the stake in one of major defense holdings, Oboronprom. Kudrin specified his position in the June 2 letter addressed to Shuvalov, which is actually the official conclusion of his ministry to the draft ruling on Rostekhnologii contribution.
Of interest is that the initial list that Rostekhnologii chief Sergei Chemezov submitted to the government past December set forth roughly 250 federal enterprises and companies to be transferred to the state corporation. It was widened to 600 enterprises afterwards but shortened to 470 in the last variant.
A source in the Kremlin doubted that Kudrin’s objections will be ultimately taken into account in the last wording of document that is being shaped by the Industry and Trade Ministry (yesterday, the sources with that ministry said they received no letter of Kudrin). “Taking into account all reprimands of Finance Ministry would strip Rostekhnologii of its most attractive assets and the company wouldn’t be able to function properly,” the source explained.
One of the key objections of Kudrin relates to funding Rostekhnologii. The matter at stake is the plans of this state corporation to fund “programs of technical upgrading of industry’s basic funds” through independent disposal of a portion of transferred assets of the government. “Implementation of this proposal is the covert form of privatization that also implies both the nontransparent procedures for those assets’ sale and the absence of control over spending the revenues by the corporation,” Kudrin said, pointing out that this practice “is aimed at withdrawing from federal budget the revenues generated by selling the government’s assets.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 10, 2008
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