Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told his deputy Dmitry Kozak to fire the bureaucrats who have failed to cut the cost of construction in Russia. Punishment should be administered at once, he said, which means someone would have been dealt a blow yesterday. As this issue went to press, the names of those punished were not yet known. The representatives of the agencies Izvestia has approached had the same answer: there was nothing to punish them for.
The pricing principles in the construction industry were changed in order to make construction cheaper. But the results have been nil. The relevant documents were of inferior quality. Putin sought explanation from Kozak as to why that happened. The deputy prime minister said that the new rules of cost estimates for capital construction have already been approved. But the work had been done only on paper. Besides, new technologies are being introduced slowly. The prime minister's reaction was tough: "Officials who fail to fulfill government decisions must be fired immediately. Please submit proposals on that score as soon as possible. Today!"
The prime minister explained why he felt so strongly about the problem:
"We are implementing major government construction projects on a very large scale: they include the Olympic facilities for which you are directly responsible, the preparation for APEC in Vladivostok, the Universiade in Kazan and some other projects financed out of the Federal Budget.
"Wages were cut, power and building materials became cheaper but the cost of construction is still higher than in Europe."
The prime minister fumed: "Some pricing principles have been changed, but what is the result? The result is the opposite of what we expected. Prices have grown."
Kozak invoked the instruction that had been issued to Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin to have another hard look at the standards. Putin demanded that they be reviewed again. He also mentioned the budget deficit: "We cannot squander government money. This is inadmissible."
Identifying the culprits turned out to be difficult. Rosstroi, which would have been the target of the prime minister's wrath, was shut down in 2008 and its functions were transferred to the Regional Development Ministry. The Ministry had no comment yesterday, saying that it was the local authorities that were jacking up prices. The Economic Development Ministry could not answer "off bat" who was responsible for the matter. Apparently, heads have to start rolling before government bodies become aware what their real functions are. The bureaucrats who keep their jobs will then improve their work and fulfill instructions more readily. It cannot be long before we learn exactly whose heads will roll this time.
Yevgeny Arsyukhin
