MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian government failed to increase servicemen's allowances starting from September 1, 2001, due to its own mistakes in elaborating budget expenditures, Andrei Nikolayev, defense committee chairman in the State Duma lower house of parliament, said on Tuesday.
Nikolayev was asked by Interfax-Military News Agency to comment on implementation of this year's state budget.
In general, the military budget is implemented in full, the lawmaker said. Moreover, the government allocated over RUB30bn (USD995.85m) from extra budget revenues for defense purposes.
If a major share of those funds had been included in the budget, financing of national defense would have been more full and dynamic, Nikolayev went on. There would have been a possibility to increase servicemen's allowances starting from September 1 as it had been planned, he claimed. However the government made a mistake, and the funds intended for the increase were redistributed and spent on other issues that can be considered force majeure to a certain extent.
Thus, RUB11bn (USD365.15m) was spent on payment of combat bonuses to participants of the Chechnya campaign. The budget allocated only RUB1.5bn (USD49.79m) for this purpose, Nikolayev noted.