Izvestia: "Putin has vowed to dismiss governors for utility tariff increases"
At a presidium meeting, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once again reminded the heads of regions that they should keep an eye on utility tariffs and not allow them to go up before June 1. The prime minister stressed that there are no grounds for raising the tariffs at present and that the Ministry of Regional Development will be monitoring the situation, to ensure that mistakes would not have to be corrected right after the event.
The day before, the issue of regional utility tariffs had caused quite a stir. Putin conducted a conference call with governors and drew their attention to the fact that in the Kirov Region utility tariffs had risen sharply, including in one town where the cost of water went up by 40%. But the head of the region, Nikita Belykh was not at work. Deputising for him was Aleksei Kuznetsov, who informed the prime minister that he knew nothing about the price rises and that the governor was still on holiday.
Belykh himself told Izvestia that both the Ministry of Regional Development and the Public Prosecutor's Office had already started carrying out enquiries, "and for all I know there may be others." He said he had nothing to hide. He added that his deputy had been unable to offer any explanations at the meeting with the prime minister because it was Aleksei Kuznetsov's first day in his new post on January 10.
"Before that he was the head of the Perm branch of Sberbank for 10 years. The meeting was expected to focus on the adequacy of the evaluation of the regional authorities’ performance, which we've discussed on several occasions, so naturally I wanted him to stand in for me at the meeting. But Kuznetsov does not deal with housing utilities, and he was not expecting the question. And of course, he couldn't make any sort of reply. But it's difficult to find fault with him over this," the governor said, backing up his subordinate.
Belykh also sees no problems with his "extracurricular holiday", which Putin criticised him for.
"This is the first holiday I've taken in three years, just a few days. I have accumulated 131 days of unused holiday, I haven't seen my children in ages. My younger children live with my wife in Perm and my oldest daughter is studying in Britain. And twice a year we all manage to get together. I sorted it all out, I took holiday from January 6 to 11, I was at work on January 2, 3, 4 and 5, you can easily check it out," said the Kirov Governor with emotion.
In his opinion, from the point of view of system-wide risks it was far more important to be at work on those days.
"If you were to ring up all the governors during this holiday period I'd like to see how many of them would be able to discuss business at all, so I find it unpleasant and hurtful to say that I was taking ease for too long. I sorted things out, I sent notification to the president and ambassador, it was a holiday abroad and I even told them where I was going and why," the governor told Izvestia.
As far as the tariffs were concerned, the Kirov governor explained that the problem with the utility prices had been sorted out back in December.
Belykh explained that in November the management company sent out bills for hot water with tariffs far higher than the thresholds. "But we gave them a ticking off, the city administration prepared and passed a resolution, and the tariffs were recalculated."
He regrets that his deputy simply did not have a full grasp of the issue;
"If my deputy had been sitting there prepared for this topic then he would have had a suitable reply to the prime minister's statement "Here is one bill, here's another": "yes and here's a third bill." The authorities are not to blame for this. If the people elected as head of communal utilities someone who could have, by law, arranged compensation for them from the municipal budget, but failed to do so, then is that really the fault of the authorities?" the governor asked.
It was reported later that Nikita Belykh's deputy had been summoned to the Government House to explain what was going on with the tariffs in the region. It turned out that this concerned the head of the headquarters of the Kirov Region government Igor Antipov.
Antipov told the governor about this meeting via Twitter: "I was summoned to the Government House on the 12th at 9 o'clock in the morning! What can I do? Play games? Can I?"
Commenting on the situation involving the summoning of Belykh's deputy to the Government House, which the governor was discussing heavily on Twitter, the prime minister's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
"Let them carry on their discussions with journalists on Twitter, but it's no use trying to talk to the Government House via Twitter."
Belykh was incensed in his reply:
"Antipov is not my deputy! He swears he didn't write anything of the sort. His task was to bring explanations to the Government House. He was not expected to carry out any discussions with anyone. I put up explanations about the utility tariffs on my live journal, I posted the resolutions, clarifications and explanations. There was one other letter about my holiday, I didn't upload it separately. I signed them on Wednesday evening and they were handed over to the government office," he summarized.
Be that as it may, the regional heads who have caught the prime minister's attention with regard to the problem of utility tariffs, will not be able to relax.
"I wish to catch the attention of the governors, you are aware how much I care about the people. We are entering an election campaign and I do not rule out the possibility that I may win. After the inauguration I will take a close look at those who permitted the tariff rises. It would be with a heavy heart, but I would be forced to make some difficult personnel decisions," Putin announced at the presidium.
Aleksei Golenishchev, Izvestia
Olga Tropkina, Anastasia Novikova
