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#4
Moscow Times
October 24, 2001
Editorial
 Aksyonenko Should Pack His Bags

Nikolai Aksyonenko and his Railways Ministry are under investigation. It's about time.

The Prosecutor General's Office said Monday it has opened a criminal investigation into the Railways Ministry and Aksyonenko has been charged with abuse of office. The probe is focusing on the misspending of $2.3 million and a tax debt of $370 million.

Aksyonenko maintains his innocence. He is blaming the investigation on unnamed parties who he says are angered by his plan to overhaul the inefficient railroad system.

The main thrust of the plan is to place the profitable parts of the ministry into state-owned Russian Railways Co. Private operators would be allowed to compete with this company. Aksyonenko's proposal was tentatively approved by the Cabinet in April.

But the railways minister, one of the last insiders from President Boris Yeltsin's days to retain a powerful government post, is the odd man out in a breed of ministers handpicked by President Vladimir Putin. His independent style has led to clashes with the current administration. And his past connections -- he has been linked to former Kremlin power player Boris Berezovsky by the press -- almost certainly don't sit well with the Kremlin.

Aksyonenko won no new friends in the Kremlin in July when he balked at a Putin-backed rail restructuring proposal to introduce a unified tariff system. He furiously demanded $785 million to cover the losses that he said his ministry would suffer this year.

In addition, Aksyonenko and his ministry have a track record of refusing to cooperate. For example, in June 1999, when he was first deputy prime minister, Aksyonenko rejected a State Duma request to explain the relationship between the Railways Ministry and TransRail, a Swiss-based freight agent. Rail industry insiders alleged that TransRail had attained a monopoly position through preferential treatment by the ministry and speculated that rail officials were using the firm to redirect cash flows into their own pockets.

More recently, the State Audit Chamber in March angrily accused the Railways Ministry of sabotaging an assessment it was preparing for the Cabinet.

Aksyonenko is now stubbornly refusing to resign, even though in a government that professes to embrace Western-style reforms and transparency he is a clear liability.

His first retort to the charges was that he would take the matter up with the Kremlin, a telling sign that he is stuck in the mindset that he is above the law. He seems to have forgotten that the Kremlin itself has said all minsters are accountable to the courts.

It's time for Aksyonenko to bow out gracefully and give the Putin-led government a chance to get railroad reforms on track.

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