26.04.2003

Chechnya's rebuilding ineffective

- chief Russian auditor MOSCOW. April 26 (Interfax) -

Chechnya's rehabilitation has been "extremely" ineffective, just "a few buildings" have been restored in the entire region, and a lot of money has been lost via mistakes, stolen, misused or used ineffectively, Russia's chief auditor said in a Saturday television program.

"The programs that are planned for the restoration of Chechnya are being implemented extremely ineffectively. "Ninety-five percent of the money that has been allocated has been put to use. This is a fairly high proportion, but in real terms only 30% of facilities have been restored: funds have been smeared around a tremendous number of facilities, not a single industrial enterprise is being restored.

"There's no real restoration, a few buildings [have been restored], and mainly it's Stalingrad ruins, a depressing picture," Sergei Stepashin, head of the Russian Audit Chamber, told Russia's Rossiya television.

Stalingrad, today called Volgograd, is a Russian city devastated by the Germans during World War II. He said the Chamber had found out that more than 20 million rubles had been lost via mistakes by accountants or finance officials, misused, or spent ineffectively. He suggested that a clear investment program be devised for Chechnya to eliminate "the factor of social tension and instability."

There are about 400,000 unemployed in Chechnya, according to Stepashin. "And then we ask why people go to the mountains, and why we can't take Maskhadov or Basayev," he said.