"Gazeta": " Vladimir Putin tackles Kaliningrad airline’s problems"
Employees at KD Avia airlines are preparing to protest their unpaid wages in the run-up to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic.
Putin's first order of business in Kalinigrad was the opening ceremony for a new road between Khrabrovo airport and Kaliningrad. The newly completed road will reduce travel time to the Khrabrovo airport from about 15 minutes to just a few minutes.
However, the local airport faces a different problem. When the Russian economy was growing, KD Avia expanded its fleet significantly, and the Khrabrovo airport was soon full of white and blue Boeing 737 medium-haul jet airliners. Yesterday, however, the airport was all but empty. KD Avia has launched bankruptcy proceedings, and receivership has been introduced until January 2010.
Despite torrential rains and strong winds, KD Avia employees organised a demonstration in Kaliningrad. Although they knew that prime minister was coming, they chose a rather strange location for their protest. About 300 people gathered near the Motherland monument, located two kilometres from the Kaliningrad Region Government building, where Putin was arriving for a conference. The demonstration could therefore not be seen from the building.
Nevertheless, Putin knew about the situation at KD Avia. "The situation was discussed in the morning with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and will be discussed again with Kaliningrad Region Governor Georgy Boos," said Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the prime minister.
As of press time, no information about the results of those discussions was available.
One Gazeta correspondent attended the demonstration and interviewed protesters. "Many employees have sued the company and won. Although the court has ordered the repayment of back-owed wages, the company's finances have allegedly been frozen," said a man named Yury who worked in the engineering department. He said airline personnel has not been paid since April, although the company's last flight was on September 5. Total unpaid wages have reached about 450 million roubles, which is owed to 2,000 employees. According to Yury, court marshals have confiscated KD Avia property and would now start selling it. "However, the process may drag on for a year or two," he added.
Proposals by the regional government have also proved ineffective. In light of the situation with KD Avia, Governor Boos has proposed changes to the Budget Code and bankruptcy law that would essentially allow that constituent entities to assume responsibility for the unpaid wages to the company's employees. "The governor's amendments have not yet been passed, and until the property issues are resolved, the local government can accomplish nothing," said another airline official on condition of anonymity.
Regional Minister of Infrastructure Development Alexander Rolbinov said that the relevant amendments would be approved within the next two weeks. In an attempt to defuse the situation during Putin's visit, the governor's press service said two million roubles were allocated from the local budget to cover the needs of the most hard-pressed employees.
Four hundred and forty-three employees received an average of 4,500 roubles each, and another 444 employees received a total of four million roubles through the Social Insurance Fund in maternity leave, post-natal care and sick-leave benefits. Moreover, the KD Avia cleaning service has employed 60 workers on a part-time basis.
The KD Avia bankruptcy is veiled in secrecy. The company estimates that it owes 11.8 billion roubles, while the Federal Air Transport Agency claims that the airline's debts have reached nearly 14 billion roubles. Although the airline is not listed as a major regional employer, the Kaliningrad International Airport is.
Until very recently, the airport management and airline sides of KD Avia's business were not separate, and the government allocated four billion roubles to support the company. The money was deposited on the account of the Kaliningrad Region, which planned to increase its share in the airline's authorised capital by the same amount. Kaliningrad government spokespersons claim this share is 9.5%, but much of the local government's share was acquired by other parties. According to Boos, the Bank of St Petersburg is currently the majority shareholder in KD Avia. Top bank officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
After the meeting between Putin and Boos, the media reported that the governor would have to spend some of those allocations to repay unpaid wages. "You have this money, you received it from the federal budget," the prime minister said.
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A broom for intermediaries
Vladimir Putin recently chaired a meeting of the Presidential Council for the Development of Local Government. The government will soon publish a list establishing which official services government officials can charge citizens for, as well as these services prices. Moreover, Putin promised to "drive out intermediaries with a filthy broom," adding that everybody had already "had enough" of intermediaries. "I hope the relevant government-level decision will be prepared in the near future," Putin said.
At the meeting, Putin focused on regional employment programmes, including professional retraining, incentives for small businesses, relocation of workers, etc. The federal and regional government fund 95% and 5% of these programmes, respectively.
According to Putin, the programmes have already produced initial results. Although nationwide unemployment reached 2.27 million in April 2009, it fell to two million in September.
"About 1.6 million people will be involved in regional programmes before the year is out," Putin said.
Professional retraining is the most popular unemployment measure. About 1.46 million people will be retrained by late 2009. Nevertheless, the numbers for small business creation and worker relocation are less flattering. Only 44,000 people will open their own businesses, and another 6,600 will relocate to other regions. Nevertheless, "the programme will continue to be implemented in 2010, and will receive 36 billion roubles' worth of federal funding," the prime minister said.
Andrei Biryukov
