Russian presidential administration tightens belt
RIA-Novosti
Moscow, 9 April: The Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation has cut its budget by approximately R6bn (some 180m dollars) and is not making savings at the expense of the president only, the president's office manager Vladimir Kozhin has said.
"Negotiations over this year's budget were not easy in fact. After the talks with the Finance Ministry we realized that a failure in the system would occur no matter what kind of expenditure we have been considering," Kozhin said in his interview to the newspaper Tribuna published today
"We did cut the budget anyway and we cut it essentially, approximately by R6bn, which is around 10 per cent of all the expenses," he said.
At the same time, Kozhin said that they had managed "to organize the work in such a way that allowed not to abandon a single launched project". He said that almost all expenditures have been reduced like "major construction, public administration, maintenance of the authorities and transport services".
"Except for the expenses to maintain the work of the president," Kozhin said. "It is clear that it is impossible to cut the president's transport expenses since he cannot reduce the number of his visits or limit his meetings with foreign colleagues," he added.