Medvedev: Natural Resources Ministry may be broken up
LISTVYANKA (Irkutsk region). June 18 (Interfax) - The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry may be broken up into several separate state bodies, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.
"[T]here is a certain discrepancy when one ministry is engaged in the commercial side - [natural resource] use - and in monitoring it," Medvedev said at a meeting on environmentalism.
"This issue is not closed. It needs to be considered, perhaps we will unbuckle ecology from natural resources," Medvedev said.
The topic was discussed previously with Natural Resources and Environment Minister Sergei Donskoi, who was asked "whether this situation is a distraction."
"Indeed, there is a discrepancy, but when the ministry was created, it was thought that it would be easier for a single agency to perform monitoring," Medvedev said.
Medvedev said there was an element of truth in that: when functions are distributed among different agencies, "it is easier to engage in concealment."
