Compensation payments delayedTimur Aliyev, North Caucasus – Monetary payments to compensate for destroyed houses in Chechnya have been delayed because of the unavailability of a complete list of the destroyed properties. This issue was discussed by officials in charge of making these payments, and Chechen newspaper editors during a round table discussion in Grozny on April 6.
According to them, only 10 percent of applicants have so far received their money; and now all payments have been suspended.
Islam Dadayev, deputy director of Rosselkhozbank, stated that as of today less than 5,000 recipients have opened accounts in their bank, whereas in the last quarter of last year when the bank started providing the service on behalf of the state over 5,000 had been opened.
Lyoma Kaplanov, deputy head of the Chechen Migration Service, said that out of 74,000 cases sent to Moscow for verification only 9,000 had been checked so far. “Above all, this compensation had been promised to the people returning from Ingushetia who are now living in temporary accommodation centers. But only 140 were notified that payments had been deposited into their accounts of which about 10 percent actually received the money."
Musaip Visengereyev, assistant head of the Committee on Compensation Payments, explained that this delay was due to not having a complete list of the destroyed houses. "The process for creating such a list is not finished yet. Now we will continue to work with district administrators of the Chechen Republic and also with special working groups responsible for these payments."
Movsar Khamidov, deputy premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, listed three main reasons for the delay. "First of all, the process for gathering applications from victims was initially done incorrectly. It is the fault of Vakha Baibatyrov, the head of the Committee. Instead of hiring employees according to their business skills or intellect, they were hired according to their relationship to him. And besides, some of the people have already received their compensation," he declared.
“The second reason is that some people, although knowing that payments would only be made if their houses were totally destroyed, submitted applications when only a corner of a house was damaged, for example. Therefore, checking and eliminating these applicants has taken a lot of time."
In Khamidov’s opinion, the third reason is the existence of swindlers who pretend to act as middlemen, and the corruption among officials engaged in gathering the applications. "We know the names [of the officials]; they’re listed in the special report we gave to President Akhmat Kadyrov. But as far as I know, none of these people have been fired." (S/E,T) |
