Federal Interior Ministry bodies will be financed at regions' expense
MOSCOW. Dec 25 (Interfax) - The transfer of law enforcement agencies financing to the federal level on January 1, 2010 will be conducted by reducing subsidies to the regions, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told reporters.
"We assume that because the regions will have released funds [due to the transfer of the financing of law enforcement agencies to the federal level], we will just conduct partial exchange of mandates," he said.
"That is, we will give less in subsidies to the regions," he added.
An estimated 200 billion rules will be needed for the Interior Ministry reforms, Kudrin said.
The Finance Ministry will raise this money by reducing subsidies to the regions, including the subsidies on construction and equipment purchase.
"Nothing will change for the regions because the amounts of subsidies to them will be reduced by the amount by which their costs of maintaining law enforcement agencies will be reduced," Kudrin said. He added that no transfers will take place before January 1, 2012. "We will be getting ready for this reform," he said.