CHECHEN “AUDIT” COMPLETED.

The head of the Russian Auditing Chamber, former Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, announced on November 20 that his agency had conducted an audit in Chechnya and concluded that “there are sufficient problems in the republic.” “We have established,” Stepashin noted, “that Chechnya received only about 40 percent of the funds earmarked in the budget. In addition, 57 million rubles were not used for the designated purpose but instead were robbed. This is very serious, inasmuch as without the resolving of social and economic questions, it is senseless to speak of a normalization of the situation in Chechnya” (NTV, “Novosti,” November 20).