Authorities of Nizhny Novgorod started looking for private business partners to work together in the social projects. International airport is one such project, which will be exhibited at MIPIM 2010 in France. Local sociologic research fund conducted a poll among citizens of the region showing changes in the public attitude to the political players. Find out details in the weekly report by FederalPress.
Authorities of Nizhny Novgorod started looking for private business partners to work together in the social projects. International airport is one such project, which will be exhibited at MIPIM 2010 in France. Local sociologic research fund conducted a poll among citizens of the region showing changes in the public attitude to the political players. Find out details in the weekly report by FederalPress.
Looking for reliable partners
The law on governmental-private partnership has been approved in the first reading by the Duma of Nizhny Novgorod. This legal act defines what kind of partnership this is, what obligations and rights both parties have, i.e. the government and its partner from private business sector.
The new form of cooperation is expected to solve the problem of financing of various socially oriented projects. The first major project offered for this type of partnership is re-construction of the international airport in Nizhny Novgorod. The project documentation has already been developed by the famous airport managing company Hochtief Airport GmbH. This concept will be exhibited at MIPIM-2010 in Cannes, France, in March this year.
Other areas of possible implementation of the governmental-private partnership are construction of homes for elderly people (of the so called senior hotel type), prenatal medical facilities, roads, bridges and apartment blocks.
Regional administration plans to build 275 thousand square meters of living space in the term of three-four years. The government will invest money into the project documentation elaboration, infrastructure construction and land assignment. While private participants will invest into the construction materials and construction process. Later the apartments can be sold at market prices.
Social poll results
Sociological Research Fund “Open Politics” published poll results showing considerable fall of popularity of the United Russia, the ruling political party in the region. In October 2010 there will be elections to the City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod, and only 40.2 percent of potential voters are ready to support the party.
This figure was 10% more in November 2009, reaching 50.4 percent. Rating of the Communist Party, on the contrary, went up from 9.1 percent to 14 percent. Liberal Democratic Party and Fair Russia both have rather low popularity among citizens of the region.
Sociologists also asked the following question: “Who, in your opinion, was interested to cancel general elections of mayor in Nizhny Novgorod?” The events of the past months indicate that this issue continues to be quite burning.
Answering this question, 54.2% of the respondents indicated City Duma Deputies to be responsible. 39.6 % chose central political authorities in Moscow. Governor Valery Shantsev was considered an interested party by 20.1 percent of the respondents, and United Russia – by 15.1%.
Current governor of the region Valery Shantsev and mayor of Nizhny Novgorod Vadim Bulavinov remain very popular as politicians none the less. People consider that they do their jobs better than their predecessors. 73.3 percent of the respondents voted for the governor. 85.5 percent chose the mayor as the best executive official. Both of them are also considered the best candidates for the next terms in the governor’s and mayor’s seats.
The Research Fund conducted this poll among 1200 citizens of Nizhny Novgorod Region. Random personal interviews were employed as a method.
Underground construction
Construction of the underground in Nizhny Novgorod seriously slowed down, partly because the contractors moved their forces and equipment to Sochi, partly because the underground project requires billions of rubles to be completed, whereas the local government is able to allocate only 100 million rubles.
“If we don’t build kindergartens, schools, and roads, we can find 500 millions more. This is not going to help”, says mayor Vadim Bulavinov.
The city also faces another problem – bridges over the river Oka. The new bridge, which opened in 2009, is not ready yet to accept 100% of traffic since access roads are not fully ready. Meanwhile the old bridges become dangerous due to long-term service without repair.