Tatarstan heads will add work to Ildus Nafikov’s public prosecutor
Asgat Safarov gave a ‘yellow card' to the owners of the farming companies Ak Bars, Set ile, Organic-group and Vamin
The Prosecutor's Office will protect municipal officials from liability for violation of anti-corruption norms and will help to adopt normative-legal acts, complying with Federal regulations. In that way the Tatarstan authorities are struggling with the lack of a sufficient number of qualified specialists in the districts. Besides, Presidential Administration is concerned with the delay of salaries in large farming holdings, insufficient development of small businesses in some districts as well as rural principle 'I'm all right, Jack'. Details of how the municipalities of Tatarstan summed up the results of 2015 — in the report of Realnoe Vremya.
The municipalities will present their 'strategy-2030' by the autumn
The briefing, that Chief of Staff of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan Asgat Safarov held yesterday, summed up all the boards of municipalities in 2015. They talked about the main problems and development directions of Tatarstan settlements: for Tatarstan, as an agrarian Republic, the prosperity of country folks is one of the main priorities. As Safarov reminded, 'Strategy-2030' proposes that each municipality will have to develop its own strategy of development by 2030 in compliance with this 'parent document'.
One of the main criteria of assessment strategies will be how the municipalities support small businesses. According to Safarov, the average share of SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) in the economy of the Republic is about 25%. 'But here the high base effect plays a big role. For example, Almetyevsk district has 230 billion rubles of commercial policy, most part of which, obviously, is formed by the oilmen,' Safarov sticked up for the oil capital of Tatarstan. According to him, it is more difficult to accomplish the task, set by the RT President, of bringing the share of SME in gross regional product up to 30%.
To support small businesses on the instructions of the President of Tatarstan the municipal industrial areas are created: agricultural parks, technology parks, etc. Now, 26 sites are ready, with more than 230 residents and 6 thousand people.
The districts have asked the Prosecutor's Office for legal assistance
Tatarstan has also thought out a plan to solve the problem of the incompetence of municipal officials. This issue has been brought up several times at the level of the top leadership of the Republic. At the time, the head of the Council Minsagit Shakirov admitted that the 'dacha amnesty' and the frequently changing federal legislation lead to frequent errors of officials and lawyers, who give illegal papers and adopt the laws that the Prosecutor's Office subsequently has to cancel. As it is hard to find competent employees, he even asked the President to introduce a moratorium on the crimes committed in connection with the procedure of 'dacha amnesty'.
Now, as Shakirov told, all the normative-legal acts, which are promulgated at the level of municipalities, will be checked by the Prosecutor's Office: the Council has covenanted an agreement with security forces. Later, answering the question of Realnoe Vremya, he said that for the first time the number of non-compliant documents has decreased about by 15%.
We will remind, as it was reported by the Minister of Justice Larisa Glukhova on the board of the Ministry, every sixth act, which is promulgated in the municipalities (15% of the total), requires cancellation or change. At the same time, only 25 districts out of 45 signed up for the newsletter of legislative updates and monitor new laws.
26 municipal deputies and 6 heads of settlements have come within the provisions of the law
Another indication of the lack of awareness of municipal employees about compliance the law can be considered great amount of anti-corruption cases. According to Asgat Safarov, most violations are connected with the implementation of state and municipal orders, purchases for offices and licensing. 'But, also, there are cases of anti-corruption character. Over the past year, Prosecutor's Office revealed 712 cases in the filing of incomplete or inaccurate information on income, expenses and assets,' he told. The reason is that now federal legislation forces to file statements not only federal and republic deputies but also municipal deputies, which are more than 7 000 in Tatarstan. Safarov asked the heads of municipalities to help to gain an understanding of how to fill in the documents. Apparently, they are not aware of how to do this.
'We have a tenacious tradition: 'I'm all right, Jack''
The main problem of municipalities Asgat Safarov called the low salary of the country folks: the average wage is only 17 thousand rubles, while the average in Tatarstan – almost 30 thousand. 'There are cases of late payment to the country folks, even those small amounts. These facts have been allowed on farms of Ak Bars Holding, Set ile, Organic-group and Vamin,' rebuked Safarov. It is noteworthy that in this case we are not talking about small private farms, but large agro-industrial enterprises of Tatarstan.
The crisis exacerbated domestic instability in society. So, speaking of migrants, Safarov noted that the Republic is not needed in the alien religious movements and radical elements. 'President of Tatarstan has already told this, but let me remind you that in all rural settlements, in districts, there should be information about each newcomer to the Republic. Especially it concerns those who arrive from conflict zones. Migrants from Central Asia. It's no secret that Islamic radicalism penetrates from there, as well as drug trafficking,' he said.
But still, the main political aim of Safarov is the forthcoming elections to the State Duma. 'The situation is difficult, it is possible to predict that the representatives of various opposition political forces will take advantage of the coming difficulties, especially the radical left-wing and liberal. We must be ready to various variants, our and your aim is to consolidate political forces and to maintain political stability in the Republic,' he summed up.
'Local government – to attract people to govern the territory they live on. Unfortunately, the activity of the population is low. We have a tenacious tradition: 'I'm all right, Jack'. The entire civilized world has implemented a local government hundreds of years ago, every person was responsible for the territory he lived on,' told the chairperson of Municipal Council Minsagit Shakirov.
Tatarstan tries to use the programme of voluntary rate-paying to develop this idea. So, in 2013, just 93 rural settlements held a referendum on the introduction of this system, in 2014 – 665, and last year – 745 settlements entered the so-called co-financing of the collected taxes for local purposes from the budget of the Republic. In 2015, they collected 600 million rubles. Overall, reminded Shakirov, the budget will cover about 50% of the powers of the municipalities.
