| In a move to overhaul the country's worn-out and
heavily subsidized housing and municipal utilities sector, Russia's
lower house on Wednesday approved amendments to the law on the federal
housing policy proposed by the government. In view of the forthcoming
parliamentary elections many deputies found it difficult to vote
in favour of a law that, when enacted, is likely to complicate the
lives of their electorate.
At the last moment the deputies made a feeble attempt to ease
the effects of the government amendments by proposing cosmetic
changes of their own to the text. The main goal of the reform,
shifting the burden of housing maintenance costs from the state
to residents, nonetheless, remained unchanged.
A group of deputies, including outspoken Communist Vassily Shandybin
demanded that the lawl be rejected altogether, but their calls
were ignored. Then Sergei
Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko faction suggested that the
law be returned to the second reading, claiming that the amendments
to the law submitted earlier by his faction had not been reviewed.
But after the bill was returned for a second reading, Mitrokhin's
amendment was rejected, while another amendment proposed by the
centrists on individuals living on incomes below the subsistence
level was approved. Owing to the centrists' efforts, during the
first year of the reforms the increase in rent and utility payments
for that category of tenants will not exceed 50 per cent.
After the amendment was passed, the bill was approved in the
second and third readings: 236 deputies voted in favour of the
document; 181 against.
The law approved by the deputies on Wednesday contains several
rather stringent measures. For example, it makes it possible for
courts to evict tenants and members of their families for failing
to pay their bills for six months in a row. At the same time such
individuals should then be provided with accommodation that complies
with sanitary and technical standards.
The bill establishes that the rent includes payment for housing
maintenance and repairs, and abolishes privileges presently enjoyed
by war and labour veterans, teachers in rural areas and doctors
- altogether, some 26 million Russians on low incomes.
In the opinion of the author of an alternative draft on housing
reform, Oleg Shein, the government's plan amounts to a doubling
of utility payments and an abolition of privileges beginning next
year. The government wants to replace privileges with targeted
subsidies for low-income households. At present, Shein noted,
people receive those privileges automatically, whereas to receive
a targeted subsidy they will have to stand in line and prove to
bureaucrats that they are indeed entitled to assistance.
If targeted subsidies are granted depending on the income of
a family on the basis of data provided by the applicant, the government
will in the long run have to spend more on housing maintenance
than it does today, or to establish an expensive and complicated
procedure for verifying the personal income statements of applicants.
The Yabloko faction, as promised earlier, unanimously voted
against the government's law. The faction believes the state leaves
the population face to face with the entities rendering communal
services that are going to retain their monopoly status, and the
reforms will end up with a rise in utility rates, while the quality
of the services will remain poor.
The government claims, however, that 40-80% of municipal budgets
and a considerable proportion of regional budgets are spent annually
on housing maintenance. Consequently, housing construction becomes
unprofitable, as each new residential block or public installation
adds to the burden carried by municipal budgets.
Mitrokhin, however, placed the entire blame on the previous
federal governments, beginning with Sergei Kiriyenko's government
(1998), which ''regularly stripped local budgets''. However, Yabloko's
protests were ignored by most deputies: it was clear that they
were not inclined to comment on the document, which was perceived
largely as a final verdict not subject to further discussion.
And this is quite understandable: one of the main goals of the
government is to privatise, by speeding up housing sector reform,
the companies rendering utility services. In the long run, the
largest and most profitable entities of the housing sector will
be owned by private companies.
See also:
Housing
and Communal Reform
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