Michael Babitch: "Power authorities have to be backstopped by finances"

The process of decentralization, announced by the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev in his Message to the Federal Assembly, has to be accompanied with the necessary funds, the Plenipotentiary of the President RF in Volga federal district Michael Babitch said, talking to journalists in Nizhniy Novgorod.

"The main principle of decentralization is quite simple" - he said - "The authorities, distributed between the corresponding branches of power - municipal, regional and federal - have to be provided with the corresponding sources of incomes"

The Plenipotentiary sited the rural councils as the evident example. Their heads have definite power authorities but have no money. As a result, even the best head turned out to be helpless and can't do anything and that in its turn causes numerous protests in the society.

In opinion of Michael Babitch when redistributing the power authorities it is necessary not just to delegate these authorities from the federal center to lower branches of power but fix them to definite power bodies and it has to be determined by the law to make every governor really responsible for his actions in the future.

"Sure, it is also necessary to unload the federal executive power bodies, making the regions more independent in solving the everyday problems they are facing now" - Michael Babitch believes - "The regions should decide themselves what they'd better spend the means they receive from the federal exchequer for".