RAMZAN TACKLES EMBEZZLEMENT

Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has said that all officials involved in machinations with compensation payments for war-damaged dwellings should be prosecuted and named publicly in order to shame them, Rossiiskaya gazeta reported on December 11.

Earlier, on December 4, Kadyrov told a meeting of the republic’s cabinet held in the city of Gudermes that rebel leaders were exploiting the unhappiness of the republic’s inhabitants over problems in receiving compensation for homes destroyed in the war. According to Itar-Tass, Kadyrov said that compensation is often paid to people whose homes have not been damaged but not paid to those who are entitled to compensation because their homes were 90-100 percent destroyed. He said that while the official records show that 32,000 people have received compensation totaling 10.68 billion rubles (over US$383 million), “at the same time everyone is complaining that they aren’t able to receive compensation.” Kadyrov said the complaints are a result of the “mass theft” of funds earmarked for compensation payments. Artur Akhmadov, head of the republic’s OMOM special tasks police unit, told the meeting that more than 3,000 cases of falsified compensation payment documents were discovered in an audit carried out in the Gudermes, Shali and Nozhai-Yurt districts.