Putin and Cabinet discuss Chechnya rehabilitation

The current work in Chechnya cannot be stopped while the restoration financing priorities are specified, President Vladimir Putin said.

"Daily work in the republic must go on. People's needs must not be neglected," the Russian president said at a routine meeting cabinet members in the Kremlin on Monday.

"Priorities must be specified and what has been done in the economic and social sphere in Chechnya analyzed," Mr. Putin said. "Everything must be done to concentrate the administrative and financial resources on the main things with a preliminary understanding what they are in Chechnya now."

The Russian president asked the acting economic development and trade minister, German Gref, who represents the key department in this matter, and the entire cabinet to be involved.

The agency tackling the rehabilitation of Chechnya should be moved from Moscow to Grozny, the head of state said. "It is a purely administrative and necessary decision," Mr. Putin said.

He also noted that compensation payments to residents of Chechnya for lost property and housing should continue.

"The payment of compensations should be continued. Things may be updated and improved but should never stop. Such work must go on," the president emphasized.

Also, the creation of conditions for the return of refugees to their permanent residence in Chechnya should not be forgotten, he said.

"This work must continue as before and the relative resources must be allocated. The conditions for the people to return to their homes must be created," Mr. Putin said.

"I ask the government chairman to keep the matter in hand," he stressed.

Mr. Gref asked the president and Mikhail Fradkov, who was also present at the meeting, to increase funding for the Chechnya rehabilitation program by several times.

"Before June 1, the list of facilities [in Chechnya] that need to be financed need to be identified as a priority this year and, before the year end, we will concentrate funding on a list of facilities that will be financed in 2005 and later on," Mr. Gref said.

"We will ask you and the prime minister to greatly increase funding of the program and boost it several times beginning in 2005," the acting minister said.

"If we are to rehabilitate the Chechen economy in a short time, we have to boost spending on the infrastructure," Mr. Gref said.

"Unfortunately, the republic proper or private business cannot manage it alone," he continued.

In Mr. Gref's opinion, after two or three years of intensive funding, private capital will come to Chechnya, people will have jobs and business and conditions for normal development of the republic will be ensured.

Mr. Gref also said that he thought that a completely transparent method of funding the rehabilitation of Chechnya program needed to be created.