Kozak Briefs Putin on Corruption in Caucasus

Friday, June 17, 2005. Issue 3189. Page 3.
By Nabi Abdullaev
Staff Writer
    

AP

Dmitry Kozak

Dmitry Kozak, presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District, has accused regional leaders in the North Caucasus of corruption and abuse of power, according to a leaked version of a report he sent to President Vladimir Putin.

The report, excerpts of which were published by Moskovsky Komsomolets on Thursday, was sent to Putin a month ago, the daily paper said. Fyodor Scherbakov, an aide to Kozak, confirmed the authenticity of the excerpts.

Kozak's stark analysis of the situation came after he made strenuous efforts to prop up regional leaders and their power bases.

Analysts said Thursday that the situation in the North Caucasus was so bad after years of Kremlin neglect that even Kozak, arguably the most effective administrator in Putin's team, had no silver bullet to improve matters.

In the report, Kozak wrote that relatives of senior officials run the major businesses in every North Caucasus republic, and that family ties permeate the power structures.

"As a result, the system of checks and balances has been destroyed, leading to the proliferation of corruption," he wrote. "Abuse of power by the authorities is leading to social apathy."

The report says that while Moscow has increased financial aid to the North Caucasus over the past four years by an average of 240 percent annually, and the republics' budgets have swelled by 160 percent, average incomes in the North Caucasus remain stuck at half the national average. Unemployment, meanwhile, has risen by 60 percent.

Local courts are subjected to "unhindered pressure" from local ruling elites and have become "tools of unfair business competition," the report said. Businesses fear abuse of power and extortion of bribes by the authorities twice as much as they fear criminals, it said.

Kozak predicted a dramatic increase in extremism in the North Caucasus and the emergence of a "macro-region of sociopolitical and economic instability."

Earlier this month, Kozak recommended the reappointment of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and the appointment of Taimuraz Mamsurov, a close ally of outgoing North Ossetian president, Alexander Dzasokhov.

Putin appointed Kozak envoy to the Southern Federal District shortly after the Beslan hostage crisis last September in an effort to strengthen regional governments. But the Kremlin's decisions to keep the same clans in power and show tolerance toward some regional bosses has demonstrated that it does not have a strategy to improve governance in the Northern Caucasus, analysts said.

"Kozak is excellent in assessing problems, working out plans to regulate the situation and putting them into effect," said Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst. "But the situation in the North Caucasus is so bad that it needs complete overhauling, not regulating. It is not the individuals or the clans in power that should be changed, but the whole system of governance."

Without this broader long-term plan of root-and-branch reforms, the Kremlin will remain a hostage to the corrupt ruling elites in the North Caucasus, experts said.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2005/06/17/012.html