MOSCOW. Sept 17 (Interfax-AVN) - The Finance Ministry has announced that the funding of housing construction for servicemen is three times higher than the approved level, a source in the State Duma lower house of parliament told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"This conclusion is contained in Deputy Finance Minister Andrei Petrov's response to a letter from the State Duma defense committee," the source said.
According to the deputy minister, the volume of federal budget funds allocated for the Defense Ministry for building and procuring houses for servicemen is more than three times higher than the volume earlier approved by the Russian Security Council.
The council fixed the annual amount of funding for housing construction and procurement for servicemen at RUB5bn (USD162.93m) for the period up to 2010. At the same time, the law "Concerning the Federal Budget for 2003" allocates RUB16.6bn (USD540.93m) for solving the housing problem of the Defense Ministry's servicemen. The funds are channeled though the Industry, Energy Industry and Construction section and Military Reform Section of the state budget. Out of this sum, RUB5bn is allocated for housing construction and procurement, RUB6.4bn (USD208.55m) for granting gratuitous subsidies for housing procurement, RUB1.2bn (USD39.12m) for completing residential houses with a high degree of readiness, and RUB4m (USD130.36m) for setting up the service housing fund.
Thus, the volume of funds allocated by the state budget exceeds the authorized level more than three times, Petrov wrote.
The situation is the same in other law-enforcement ministries and agencies.
According to the Defense Ministry's data earlier reported to Interfax-AVN, a total of 169,800 servicemen need housing. As many as 95,700 servicemen have no apartments of their own. Of this number, 95,700 servicemen need permanent housing, and 44,200 servicemen service housing. 29,800 servicemen need improvement of their current housing conditions.
Moreover, 58,000 families of persons who have lost connection with the Defense Ministry are to be moved from restricted-access military compounds.