MOSCOW, July 14 (AVN) - The Federal Boarder Guard Service (FBGS) is facing a huge financial crisis, a well-informed source in the service told the Military News Agency.
The suppliers of the FBGS are refusing to deliver their products, including rations, in debt and are turning to courts of arbitration. The FBGS is constantly fined and its accounts are arrested. The money is taken from the FBGS bank accounts irrespective of its purpose destination. There are attempts to arrest military property on the basis of court decisions. According to the financial and economic department of the FBGS, a total sum of RUR256m (over USD9m) has been arrested this year.
Nikolai Kosharny, the deputy head of financial and economic department confirmed that there is a lack of money. The planned financing of the FBGS for 2000 is 75 percent of the minimally needed, given the fact that this year the money come from three sources - federal budget, road fund, sea and biological resources studies and propagation fund, he said. The money for forming the service 2001 budget will come only from the federal treasury, Kosharny stressed.
The FBGS needs money for the deployment and supply of the border guard units withdrawn from Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Turkmenistan in 1999, for the equipment of 6,478 kilometres of the Russia-Kazakhstan border, for stationing new units on the Chechen part of the Russia-Georgia border. The lack can badly influence the main FBGS task - border guarding, Kosharny added.