Transcript of Putin's Press Conference

Regional responsibilities and energy supplies

[Question] Tatyana Ingoyan, the Urals Federal District, Chelyabinsk. Mr President, despite the fact that the summer is in full swing, people in the regions, particularly such regions as ours - Chelyabinsk Region - and our neighbours in Sverdlovsk Region are most of all concerned at the following issue: we have quite a few closed-circuit production enterprises, so which measures the federal centre is going to take to prevent a situation similar to the one that took shape in Maritime Territory from repeating itself? Thanks.

[Putin] You know, the problem which you have just raised is topical not only for Maritime Territory but for many other regions as well. It is not linked solely to the poor condition of machinery. This is a comprehensive problem of administrative, financial and, of course, technical nature. The administrative aspect lies in the fact that, unfortunately, a system under which various levels of government bear responsibility for what they are supposed to do has not been built yet and has not been effectively mobilized.

It is precisely for this reason we have actively moved over to resolving questions of delimiting competencies. Some particular responsibility has been formally allocated to the local authorities but the necessary material resources have not been transferred to them. The material resources have remained with the region, but the region bears no responsibility for this, and so on and so on.

This means that, in these conditions, of course, although the government bears no formal responsibility for this, the government does not have the right to make out that this does not concern it. At the present time, although this is not the direct prerogative of the government, let me repeat, the government is nevertheless, actively engaged in this, in fact more actively than was the case in previous years. I must say that I am still not satisfied with the way that this is being handled right now. I actually discuss this question with the government every time we meet. We discussed it three days ago.

Unfortunately RAO YeES [electricity company] has not yet managed to fulfil the tasks for building up resources and reserves of fuels which the organization set for itself. The same applies, though to a lesser extent, to Gazprom [gas company]. I repeat that these are primarily financial and organizational questions, but technical and technological problems also stem from them. At the same time I should say that work is going on intensively and I think that in this [heating] season everything will be done to ensure that people are provided with warmth.

Although, let us be frank about this, the situation in Maritime Territory last year was given a lot of coverage by the mass media and therefore it has stuck in our memory. But in reality, throughout recent years, similar situations have occurred in various regions of the country quite frequently.

In order to move away from that we must carry out a lot of work in municipal housing and in the reorganization of that sphere which has stayed practically unchanged since the Soviet times and which can no longer function in conditions of a market economy. Perhaps, there is no point talking about it now because this issue has been given enough attention and there has been a lot of press coverage about it.

[Moderator] In the third row, please, introduce yourself.