The Putin Government will provide its officials with housing
The Government has approved the procedure of issuing subsidies to federal civil servants to acquire housing, allowing government officials to bypass general rules.
Civil servants were granted the right to receive subsidies back in 2004 under the law On the State Civil Service. Now they will be able to exercise that right. Up until now the procedure could be applied only in several regions. Several government officials told Vedomosti that no one in their respective agencies had received housing over the past few years.
The press secretary of the President's Administrative Directorate, Viktor Khrekov, says that any housing acquired for government officials is allocated under a social lease contract. Now they will be able to choose between taking the money (subsidy) or a flat under a social lease contract. "The agencies themselves decide who is to receive a flat," Mr Khrekov stresses.
Under the decree signed by Prime Minister Putin on January 27 (the document is accessible in the legal information system Konsultant Plus), any civil servant is entitled to government assistance in acquiring housing if he or she is officially deemed to need improving his/her housing conditions, i.e. if he or she either owes no flat, or lives in a communal flat or a hostel. If it turns out that before applying for a subsidy the official in question has deliberately worsened his/her housing conditions (for example, exchanged his/her flat for a worse one), he or she will be able to apply for new housing only in five years' time. But top-ranking officials, "directors" and "advisors (assistants)" can ignore this rule.
The floor space allowed for civil servants is the standard 33 square metres for the civil servant and 18 square metres for each family member. In calculating the size of subsidies, the length of civil service is taken into account, but the size of the subsidy may be increased simply "by decision of the head of the government agency based on the particular circumstances". The registration of officials seeking to acquire new housing will begin not earlier than three months from now. During this time the Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development must approve the rules of creating agency commissions that would handle housing issues and determine the registration procedure for those civil servants who need to improve their living conditions.
According to the Federal Service for State Statistics (Goskomstat), there were 838,000 civil servants as of the end of 2007. The Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development does not yet know how many of them need new housing. That will become known after the commissions start working and applications begin to be filed, a Ministry spokesman says. Up until now, because of the lack of a legal framework, the money allocated for the acquisition of housing for civil servants was returned to the budget.
Subsidies will be paid out of the budget allocations to government ministries and agencies earmarked for providing civil servants with housing. We are not looking at very large amounts of money, says Natalya Burykina, a member of the State Duma Budget Committee. Moreover, the Government has the right to suspend certain expenditures.
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How much will they get?
In 2009, 75 billion roubles was allocated for the Housing Programme, of which 4.4 billion roubles is intended to provide housing for civil servants. The President's Administrative Directorate will get 222 million roubles out of that amount. The Tax Service, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Industry and Trade will get 130 to140 million roubles each.
Anastasia Kornya