Nezavisimaya Gazeta
EurAsEC Loan Terms Tougher for Belarus
With a crisis similar to last year’s downturn looming over Minsk, experts from the EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund are considering tightening the terms of an emergency loan for Belarus, Nadezhda Yermakova, head of the National Bank of Belarus, told a news conference yesterday. Local experts agree and see a change of government as the only solution.
Experts from the EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund say that the gold and foreign exchange reserves of Belarus should be equivalent to the country’s three-month total volume of imports, and the country must step up its privatization efforts. Otherwise “there is a high risk of more negative trends in the Belarusian economy.” “It is their right to see the risks,” the bank chief commented.
Another $440 million loan advance was supposed to reach Belarus in February. While the fund experts had been waiting for Belarus to confirm its intention to proceed with structural reforms and privatization, President Lukashenko ordered changes to the privatization terms and announced he was willing to sell any enterprise for good money. His announcement triggered suspicions that Lukashenko wants to make state property sales less transparent. There is a new assumption now that the country is only giving the appearance of reducing state involvement.
Yermakova noted, however, that there is no “pressing need” for this $440 million. Belarusian officials keep promising that the crisis is over and the national economy is recovering. Experts and ordinary people disagree. “This is what I call cheating and populism,” former head of the National Bank Stanislav Bogdankevich claims, pointing to the extremely low turnover of interbank lending, which indicates recession, and surging prices despite the falling cost of energy.
The full impact of the crisis is still keenly felt by ordinary consumers. Prices are going up for certain essential items no longer under full government control. Cheap types of pork have doubled in price but they are still flying off the shelves. People are no longer shocked by YouTube videos of pensioners fighting for budget milk. Restrictions on the sale of budget dairy products will probably have to be imposed in some provincial cities where living standards are lower.
Housing and utilities rates went up by 5 percent-10 percent, and public transport fares went up by 15 percent. Salaries are also rising slowly. As of February, the average salary in Belarus was $365 but that is still a long way off the $500 of the pre-election period. It seems even less appealing if we take into account that prices have gone up three times – pro rata with the devaluation of the national currency.
Yesterday Nadezhda Yermakova promised that despite the growing national debt (about $19 billion in 2012), the country is able to fulfill its obligations.
Economist Leonid Zlotnikov estimates that Belarus would need $1 billion a month in foreign investment just to maintain the current state of affairs. He believes a crisis similar to last year’s could occur if officials do not adjust their economic policy and proceed with reforms.
Kommersant
Experts Criticize Healthcare Ministry for Inadequate HIV Program Spending
Healthcare experts and nonprofit organizations insist that the $645 million approved by the government for 2012 is not enough to check the looming HIV epidemic, with the number of people infected in Russia close to 1 million.
On Friday the Healthcare Ministry will name the winners in its annual tender to supply HIV medicines and services. The 19.117 billion ruble ($645.7mn) federal allocation will include 3 billion rubles for copying, packaging and delivering HIV awareness DVDs and 5 billion rubles on HIV programs on national television. There are in fact 39 lots on offer on the state procurement website, spokesperson Sofia Malyavina said.
The government’s HIV spending remains unchanged from 2011, which has sparked harsh criticism of the Healthcare Ministry’s policy. According to Dmitry Goliayev, director of the Russian Healthcare Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit organizations addressing the HIV problem, the number of people infected with HIV in Russia has increased sharply in recent months and is continuing to grow by 100 people a day, up from 90 in 2011. He believes that with this trend it is simply not wise to keep spending flat. Moreover, this year the ministry rejected a $127 million donation from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Federal AIDS Center confirmed the alarming trend: the number of new cases of HIV grew by 6.2 percent in 2011, and the total number of those infected is over 620,000. Chief Sanitary Officer Gennady Onishchenko cited even more frightening statistics in last month’s report – 650,000 HIV patients. He also believes that the epidemic has recently been spreading to older age groups, who are not covered by the awareness programs.
Data from the Federal AIDS Center suggests that Russia is on the verge of a “generalized epidemic,” and that the number of HIV infections will soon exceed 1 million, Goliayev said. This figure represents 0.7 percent of the population, while in Western and Central Europe the rate is only 0.2 percent and in Latin America, 0.4 percent.
“Government funding for HIV treatment – not for awareness booklets – is clearly insufficient. According to independent estimates, about 150,000 people received no treatment in 2011, while only 90,000 patients did,” he added.
However, the Healthcare Ministry insists that its financing of HIV programs is adequate and that the statistics cited by Onishchenko and NGOs are “not objective.” “All newly-diagnosed HIV patients immediately get registered with their local AIDS centers. We do not have the official data for the increase in their number in 2011, but regional offices are working them out at the moment,” Malyavina said.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Former Mayor Killed at a Filling Station in Moscow
Sergei Ponomarenko, 47, former mayor of Shakhty, a city in the Rostov Region in the south of Russia, was shot dead in western Moscow on April 4.
According to MK sources, Ponomarenko and his wife arrived in Moscow several days ago. On Wednesday morning, he set off for a business meeting in his Audi S5. He stopped for gas at a filling station on Mozhaiskoye Highway. After paying, he got back in the car. At that moment, a man wearing a black jacket with a hood approached him.
The killer shot Ponomarenko with a 5.45mm gun through a closed window, calmly walked over to a car waiting nearby and drove off. The ex-mayor died from a head wound.
Ponomarenko was elected mayor of Shakhty in 1997, lost the race in 2003 and was elected deputy of the Rostov Region legislature in March 2003. He was again elected mayor in 2005 and re-elected for a third term in March 2010, but was fired in February 2011 on orders from the Rostov Region governor. Ponomarenko was ultimately charged with abuse of office, in particular by hiring a personal chef, a driver and a bodyguard who were paid from the municipal budget, and also by using a state-owned minivan for his personal needs. The case was dismissed recently for lack of evidence, but the prosecution has filed an appeal.
The second case against Ponomarenko is similar to a scandal in Sergiyev Posad, a city near Moscow where Mayor Yevgeny Dushko was killed.Ponomarenko transferred the assets of the Shakhty Vodokanal water utility to private companies, misappropriating 40 million rubles ($1.4 million) of public funds. Another charge against him concerns the embezzlement of 16 million rubles ($0.5 million) from subsidies allocated for the development of the municipal service center in Shakhty. The money landed in the mayor’s accounts.
Ponomarenko had received threats and there was an attempt on his life in 2007, when a bomb was planted at his gate. However, those who knew the ex-mayor say that the assassination attempt could be connected with his business. Ponomarenko owned a chain of bakeries, a flour mill and a real estate company in the city. However, it is more likely that he was killed because of his aspirations to become the Shakhty mayor again.
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