Two top events of the last week are change of the local leader of the United Russia and debates in the local government referring to the budget for 2009. Kurgan Region also provided field for the massive military training of peace-making teams before their departure to Abkhazia. Find details in the material by UralPolit.Ru.
Two top events of the last week are change of the local leader of the United Russia and debates in the local government referring to the budget for 2009. Kurgan Region also provided field for the massive military training of peace-making teams before their departure to Abkhazia. Find details in the material by UralPolit.Ru.
Aleksey Dudich replaced Oleg Panteleev
Political council of the regional division of the United Russia in Kurgan Region elected the new Secretary. The former Secretary Oleg Panteleev resigned September 8 according to the new party’s directives. Each party member can’t hold top positions both in the government and in the party due to excess of work. Oleg Panteleev will remain a party member but will be able to concentrate solely on his work in the Council of the Federation. Aleksey Dudich was elected unanimously as the new Secretary due to his solid positive reputation as a politician. “We will work together to ensure growth of the region’s economy”, Mr. Dudich said after his appointment.
Lawyers’ critique
Lawyers of the regional government have serious arguments against the new draft regarding election rights of the citizens in the region. Regional election commission developed a number of amendments regarding a row of elections on March 10, 2010, when voters would have to check in 5-7 voting papers while the federal law allows the maximum of 4 bulletins at a time. The election commission suggested to prolong or to cut terms of commission for the deputies and other officials. Legal counselors however found many discrepancies in the draft. Now amendments will be passed over to the governor Oleg Bogomolov for his final review and comments.
Dishonest candidates
On September 11 Kurgan’s election commission published the list of candidates for the Kurgan City Duma who provided invalid information regarding their income and property. Out of 8 candidates 7 indicated ownership of property which could not be confirmed by the tax and property registration offices. Information regarding their savings was also inaccurate. The voters will have to define their attitude to the candidates listed when it comes to checking in the bulletin.
State border on sale?
On September 9 Kurgan’s Committee for legislation and governmental construction decided to develop a new draft in order to stricken criminal and administrative responsibility for violations of frontier regulations and referring to the exemption of private land at the state border. If such law passes it will give right to the government of Kurgan to exempt private land on the border of the Kurgan Region and Kazakhstan. The first deputy director of the frontier regulation department in Kurgan and Tyumen Regions Salavat Ganeev reports that over 50% of near-border land is owned by private holders who continue to purchase neighboring lots along the border while their relatives are doing the same on the side of Kazakhstan. This creates a serious difficulty for the government to construct a real borderline with control stations, customs and other frontier facilities.
The committee looks for possible solutions in this sphere and hopes to prepare a draft for the Russian parliament.
Labor unions against fuel producers
Labor unions of the Kurgan Region held a one-hour picket on the central square of Kurgan against rising fuel prices. “We are standing in front of this building because this is the seat of the chief federal inspector Vladimir Balakin. We are picketing the federal power, not regional”, said Anatoly Samarin, chairman of the regional committee of labor unions of automobile transport. Road workers request the federal officials to introduce more measures to control fuel pricing through taxes, antimonopoly regulations, export duties, and effective management of raw materials.
Picketing workers prepared address note to the President, collected signatures and sent it off.
Region is in need of gasification legislation
General Director of KurganRegionGas Viktor Berdyugin presented an offer to the regional government on September 10 on the development of a gasification program which could be given the status of a regional Act. The program will be developed for the term of 3-5 years and ensure stable investments from the regional and municipal budgets as well as Gasprom and its subsidiaries.
Before today the General Scheme of gasification and gas provision has been adopted annually for the term of one year. Long-term scheme is suggested to optimize the budget money and stimulate gas networks construction. In 2007 the Kurgan Region did not meet strict requirements of Gazprom to gasify 100% of houses in the territory of 6 regional districts and as a consequence Gazprom cut financing considerably. Currently the government is waiting for Gazprom’s budget suggestions for 2009.
The government decided upon adoption of medium-term and long-term gasification programs.
Peace-makers in the Kurgan Region
Active phase of tactical military training took place on September 11 in the village of Safakulevo of the Kurgan Region. The 15th peace-making motorized rifle team practiced liquidation of an imitated terrorist group. One of the battalions of the 15th team currently fulfills peace-making activities in the area of Georgian-Abkhazian conflict and will soon be replaced by a fellow battalion from the team. Valery Evnevich, deputy commander-in-chief of the land forces of Russia, attended training field and reported that for the first time military forces trained cooperative interaction with internal troops and federal security forces.
The official sources indicate that training in the Kurgan Region makes a part of the strategic training program Center-2008, which will involve 3 divisional, 1 team and 5 regimental drills.