11/12/98 - DEVELOPMENT-RUSSIA: CHUKOTKA SITS ON RICHES BUT LIVES IN POVERTY
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MOSCOW, (Nov. 12) IPS - For the past two weeks, Anadyr, the capital of Chukotka in north-east Russia, has been facing daily power cuts, as its local authorities desperately hunt for cash to run life-sustaining basic services.
As the Arctic winter sets in, power is being shut off daily for four hours a time, putting refrigerators out of service and endangering winter food stores. Even the gas supplies cut out when the electricity goes off.
On paper, Chukotka, 6,700 kilometers north-east of Moscow, is rich beyond its needs. It sits on the second largest reserves of gold in Russia, as well as significant reserves of coal, tin and oil, with plentiful fish stocks off its long coasts.
Yet the inhospitable province still cannot provide for itself and must "import" everything from toilet paper to light bulbs from St Petersburg, and pay for them with its earnings from the raw materials it "exports" to the south.
And there are no earnings, as their trading partners in Russian provinces elsewhere see their cash flow disappear and the value of their assets evaporate in the present economic crisis.
Last year the region"s total trade turnover was worth four million dollars. But this covered exports worth $20,000 and imports worth $3.98 million -- a 99 percent deficit.
In Soviet days, when the region was developed to allow the exploitation of its natural resources, Moscow encouraged people to move into the region by offering higher than average pay and many other privileges. A "northern delivery" program, run from St. Petersburg, was established to bring in supplies regardless of cost.
This is no longer possible. Last year the supplies feel short by 700,000, including a missing 138,000 tonnes of vital oil products, says Vladimir Goman, chairman of Russia"s State Committee for the North.
The situation is no better this year. Only the "survival minimum" of food and fuel has been delivered to the northern regions, he says.
Chukotka overall needs 460,000 tonnes of coal, but supplies will be reduced to a minimum this winter because of the financial difficulties. Even then the local administration has no money to pay the workers who deliver it to the general populace.
Furthermore Chukotka"s only nuclear power plant at Bilibino may soon be closed by safety fears and funding problems. The plant has not been paid for the power it supplied in 1997 or 1998, leaving it with a deficit of 109 million rubles (about $6.8 million).
Goman concedes that the Russian government has done its best to settle the problems under conditions of economic crisis and a paralysed banking system. He also notes that Chukotka"s own administration needs improvements in efficiency even though it employs twice the number of bureaucrats than the Russian average.
But he also complains that Moscow has failed to deliver all the money it has pledged in the past, creating a crisis for this and next year. "Poor organization is only a part of the problem," he says.
"From 1994 to this day, about 20 billion rubles in credits and loans were allocated to northern territories for goods and supplies. However, only 40.5 percent of the money was received by regional funds for support of northern supplies. Where is the rest of the money?"
Last December, the Russian government agreed to back measures to reform state support for the North and reaffirm support for a comprehensive program for the development of northern regions.
"However, they are of little effect and are not being properly fulfilled," Goman says. Instead he is pressing Moscow to allow a top to bottom revision of the region"s municipal zoning, on which supplies and funds are allocated.
"Many towns and settlements have been deserted by their residents," he says. In fact the region"s population has fallen by half, from 160,000 to 80,935 people between 1990 and 1998.
Whole settlements are being shut down as people lose their jobs, abandon their valueless homes and property and seek work elsewhere.
The old and poor are trapped. "Today, one in every five northern residents is a pensioner. It is necessary to encourage their movement to the country"s southern regions in order to release funds to support the able-bodied population."
Only very few people presently benefit from relocation aid packages designed to help migrants buy new homes or ship their belongings to new homes in Central Russia. And those who are leaving are the descendants of the original privileged Russian immigrants.
Like the old, the indigenous peoples of the region are being left behind to make the best of what is left of their traditional ways of life and work, as reindeer herders and fishermen.
For Goman, it is the plight of these indigenous peoples that most worries him. "The preservation of traditional occupations and crafts is a matter of survival for these peoples who live in extremely difficult conditions."
These arctic rural communities, where the average lifespan is just 45 years, are plagued by tuberculosis, parasitic infections, alcoholism and unemployment.
"Even with the present limited resources of the federal budget it is important to find funds for promoting reindeer husbandry as a major source of food supplies for ethnic villages and nomadic tribal communities," he says.
He wants sea fishing licenses to go to ethnic minority businesses and fresh funds directed to commodity producers. He also urges a new system of ownership of land and mineral resources -- presently controlled by federal and regional governments -- that gives the indigenous populations a bigger say and a fairer share in the division of resources.
Whether all this can be done is not known. "The government has been very busy passing laws on the far north," Goman says, "but few of them are implemented."
In the long run, Goman believes, the economic hardships will be overcome "and the time will come when we shall continue the development of huge reserves of oil, gas, non-ferrous metals, gold, diamonds and the other riches of the North.
"The government"s task is to create the necessary conditions for this." |
