Moscow Times
March 10, 2009
National Projects Moved to Back Seat
By Anatoly Medetsky MT / Staff Writer
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has disbanded the Cabinet department responsible for the four national projects, seen as Dmitry Medvedev's springboard to the presidency.
Even so, the projects seeking to develop farming, health care, education and affordable housing since 2006 will move ahead and remain a spending priority, a Cabinet spokesman said Monday.
The change in running the projects underlines their much lower profile now that they have lost the role of a powerful campaign tool for Medvedev, who easily won the presidential election on March 2, 2008. It also reflects new government priorities as the crisis buffets the economy.
The government has yet to make good on promises to give a grand accounting of what the projects have accomplished, and hopes that it will do so appear increasingly dim with the elimination of the department.
Putin, in announcing the Cabinet change on Friday, ordered the creation of an industry and infrastructure department to replace the departments for the national projects and sectoral development. Supervision over the national projects was transferred to the new department and the departments for education, social development and agriculture.
The shuffle aims to "strengthen coordination" in carrying out the projects and to cut staff to save money in the economic crisis, the Cabinet said in a statement. The Cabinet has cut 158 jobs, it said in a separate statement, without giving a figure for total staff.
In announcing the job cuts, the Cabinet has followed the Kremlin's lead. President Medvedev's administration will lose at least 100 out of its 1,500 jobs as a cost-cutting measure, the Kremlin said last month.
In a sign that the national projects department's days were numbered, its chief asked and received permission to step down more than two months ago. Its chief was Boris Kovalchuk, the son of billionaire banker Yury Kovalchuk.
"The department, no doubt, played a very important role in the implementation of the national projects," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
As the other departments take over the work, they will each appoint a deputy chief in charge of the projects, Peskov said.
"The work is being perfected, intensified and broadened," Peskov said.
Peskov reiterated that the national projects remained a spending priority for the government. Putin stated as much at the latest government meeting on the projects in February. He didn't name the amount that would be spent.
The housing project will get three times as much federal money this year as last year, or more than 400 billion rubles ($11.2 billion), Regional Development Minister Viktor Basargin said in December.
The government spent 265 billion rubles on all four projects last year. State spending on construction is increasing this year as the government tries to stimulate the economy.
Even so, the national projects lost much of their luster after helping Medvedev win the presidency last March. The national projects committee met just four times last year, compared to 11 times the year before.
Medvedev enjoyed wide media coverage as the first deputy prime minister in charge of the "priority" projects on his frequent tours around the country in the run-up to the presidential elections.
"It was a very convenient and legal way to get an early start for what turned out to be the effective campaign for the main candidate," said Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "They needed a special agency to get that jump-started."