TOP RUSSIAN OFFICIALS SUBMIT INCOME DECLARATIONS.

All senior government officials in Russia have now released income declarations, although their reliability is somewhat in doubt. Security Council deputy secretary Boris Berezovsky topped the income list, earning 2.5 billion rubles ($430,000) in 1996, followed by First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais with 1.7 billion rubles. Only 39 million of Chubais’s total came from his government salary; the remainder came from consultancy fees and dividends during his three months out of government service. Boris Yeltsin himself earned only 244 million rubles, and Viktor Chernomyrdin recorded the lowest income of all the top officials — only 46 million. Deputy Prime Minister Alfred Kokh was paid 557 million rubles ($100,000) by the Swiss-based Sirvana trading company for a book he has written on Russian privatization. His salary as head of the State Privatization Committee was 23 million rubles. No Duma deputies have apparently filed income declarations. (Profil, July 17)

Russian Monopoly Policy on Hold.