MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax-AVN) - Servicemen that have no flats of their own have to wait for more than 11 years to get housing in Moscow, Major General Vadim Nikolsky, deputy chief of the Defense Ministry main housing and quartering department, said in an interview published in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper on Tuesday.
The list of servicemen in need of flats starts with people who were put on the list yet in 1990 and 1991. The general did not rule out that some people on the list had been waiting since 1988 or 1989.
There are some 95,000 officers and warrant officers without their own flats in the Russian Armed Forces as of January 1, 2002. Over 26,000 families of servicemen need their housing conditions to be improved. The number of people who have retired from military service and are waiting to get own flats exceeds 160,000.
The housing problem might be solved if the Defense Ministry implements new projects together with administrations of regions and other partners, Nikolsky said.
In particular, the ministry has reached an agreement with the Moscow mayor's office and will give up ownership of some plots of land in exchange for 30 percent of flats to built on those plots. The construction of houses for servicemen who have state housing certificates has been launched on a parity basis together with the Moscow city government.
Another program allows the Defense Ministry to rent houses for a long term to grant service flats to officers. Introduction of the mortgage system is under consideration. If it is endorsed, a servicemen will get a flat at once and the Defense Ministry will pay for it in tranches.
At the same time the ministry is to continue implementing its own program of housing construction, Nikolsky said.