Prosecutors brought criminal charges against Viktor Telkov, director of the state-run mining enterprise Granit in the town of Mikashevichi, Brest region, following a large-scale audit by the State Control Committee.
The auditors established that Granit had sold 99,000 tons of crushed stone to Lithuania's Trimel Securities Inc. without reaching a preliminary agreement on the terms and conditions of payment as required by regulations.
The press office of the State Control Committee said that the deals had caused losses of 935.5 million rubels. The Committee said that the management had ignored regulations that limited terms of payment in export transactions, bought oil without a license, sold sand to a Russian company at an unreasonably low price, and paid another Russian company too much for two heavy-duty trucks.
The State Control Committee imposed fines totaling 266,000 Russian rubles and 338 million Belarusian rubels on Granit, and Mr. Telkov was sacked.
The Polish police on May 27 extradited to Belarus a 37-year-old Pinsk resident, who fled the country in 1997 after being released on his own recognizance.
The man is suspected of affiliation with a gang whose members were convicted following his escape by a Brest Regional Court judge.
The fugitive was entered in the Interpol list of wanted criminals in 1998, the Brest regional police office told BelaPAN. In 2000, the region's law-enforcement agencies found out that the escapee was serving a 3.5-year prison sentence in Poland. He was extradited to Belarus after he completed his Polish prison term.
The fugitive is currently held in a pretrial detention center in Brest.
The regional government in Brest has launched a weekly campaign to attract subscribers to state-controlled newspapers.
The drive began on May 27 with a meeting of officials responsible for ideology with editors of the local newspapers, correspondents for national periodicals and deputy chiefs for ideology at enterprises,
organizations and higher education establishments.
Nina Shpak, head of the Brest Regional Executive Committee's Information Department, ordered ideology executives to do their best to ensure that "the reader receives the state press."
Similar meetings will be held in Baranovichi, Pinsk and other district centers later this week. About 803,000 copies of newspapers and magazines were distributed by subscription in the region on
April 1, according to the state-run distributor, Belpochta. In Brest, 368 copies are delivered by subscription per 1000 residents compared with 746 copies in the Kamenets district, and 710 copies in the Lyakhovichi district. National newspapers account for 63.4 percent of the periodicals distributed by subscription, and district newspapers for 14.2 percent.
Belarus' largest government-controlled newspaper Sovetskaya Belorussiya has 45,754 subscribers in the region, and another national newspaper, Narodnaya Gazeta, has 6,209 subscribers. The number of
subscribers to district papers ranges from 2,890 (Holas Chasu, Malorita) to 13,619 (Nash Krai, Baranovichi).
Vecherny Brest, which has the largest number of subscribers in the region, about 50,000, plans to set up its own distribution system this year.Subscriber numbers for private newspapers were not cited at the meeting.
Each dollar invested in the Free Economic Zone (FEZ) "Brest" currently yields $12 in return, said Valery Rainchik, first deputy head of the FEZ administration, while speaking at a conference on the role of FEZs in improving the country's economic situation.
The FEZ in Brest, the country's oldest, was exposed to all flaws in FEZ-related regulations when it was established in 1997, said Mr. Rainchik.
He said that the zone, which was built in a vacant area and had to build every utility line, differed considerably from Gomel-Raton, which is situated in Gomel's so-called northern industrial center that
comprises large industrial enterprises such as Korall, Raton and Gomelkabel.
The Brest FEZ has 95 resident enterprises that employ 6,500 people, according to Mr. Rainchik. The declared investments total $120 million and $90 million of the amount has already been invested.
Mr. Rainchik said that the zone's economic performances ranked it third among the region's areas after the city of Baranovichi and the Leninsky district in Brest.
Individual entrepreneurs who sell non-food consumer goods at Brest's Tsentralny Rynok (Central Market) amassed on Lenin Square on Wednesday morning to display their protest against the city authorities' decision to evict them from the market.
As a protester told BelaPAN, they had occupied 328 selling places at the market before the Brest City Executive Committee decided to clear room for sellers of fruit and vegetables.
On May 20, a delegation of the evicted vendors was received by the Committee's officials, who promised to sort out the problem.
Despite this, more than 100 people arrived at the square the following day to continue their protest, although they chose not to display any signs.
Tsentralny Rynok Director Yevgeny Mushinsky explained to BelaPAN that sellers of non-food goods had always been requested to vacate space for the summer period, as the market is above all for trade in
food products, but this time the City Executive Committee decided to clear the market from non-food goods forever, not for the summer period, citing the forthcoming renovation.
The Committee promises to provide the evicted vendors with space at other market places in Brest, but this does not appear to satisfy them.
Belarusian border guards rounded up 26 illegal migrants from China this month in the Brest region alone. Sixteen were stopped by border guards of the Pinsk unit. The migrants were examined for SARS symptoms and expelled.
On the evening of May 19, border guards apprehended 10 Chinese at the border near Brest. They had a Polish operator's mobile phone and a radio transmitter. The border guards also took into custody four
Belarusians who were suspected to have been accompanying the group, allegedly for an award of $10,000 each.
The migrants were examined by doctors and transferred to a detention facility in Brest. The Chinese said they left their country more than six weeks ago, whereas the SARS incubation period is estimated at 10 days.
Brest's free economic zone in southwestern Belarus falls far short of government-set targets for attracting investment.
The Brest regional government has tasked the zone with attracting $125 million, but only $10 million has been pledged by investors so far. The regional investment target is $141 million.
Speaking before regional executives on May 19, Ural Latypov, head of the presidential administration, said that the failure to meet targets threatened to frustrate the government's plans.
Early this year, local authorities expected to draw foreign investment to the region's processing and light industries, mechanical engineering, metal-turning, border infrastructure and road services. Forty-
nine manufacturers contributed sixty projects to a catalog of investment opportunities. Mr. Latypov said that Brest will host a forum on investment in June to be attended by Belarusian leader
Aleksandr Lukashenko.
The Brest free economic zone, which mainly includes woodworking, glass, light industry, food, mechanical engineering, metalworking, retail and public catering companies, has attracted $80 million
in investment in seven years. Almost a third of the total amount (26.49 percent) came from domestic companies, 21 percent from Germany, 15 percent from Russia, and ten percent from Poland. Israeli,
Cypriot, Italian, Swiss and French also invested in businesses there.
Each dollar generated $8.5 in direct returns in 1996-2002, and $12.6 in 2002. Exports grew by 40 percent in 2002 and by 32 percent in the first three months of 2003. The zone has 95 manufacturers employing 6,500. According to its administration, it accounts for 55.6 percent of the total output in Belarus' free economic zones.
Ural Latypov, head of the Presidential Administration, criticized the economic performance of the Brest region, while speaking at a May 19 meeting of the Brest Region Executive Committee.
According to him, the region's agricultural output has fallen by 0.3 percent year-on-year in 2003. Enterprises' finished product inventories have risen by 56 percent compared with January and totaled more than 100 percent of the monthly output. The share of unprofitable enterprises accounts for 46 percent, a 7-percent increase compared with the same period of the previous year.
Mr. Latypov noted that several enterprises have failed to meet the job creation targets set by Aleksandr Lukashenko. In addition, he said, pay arrears in the region currently account for 10.5 percent of the monthly payroll, whereas the country's average is seven percent. Farms are the region's worst debtors, Mr. Latypov said. He also noted the poor condition of the system of consumer services in rural areas. The Presidential Administration head pointed out that the Belarusian leader had received a lot of complaints from the region's residents, in particular from the Stolin district. He urged the regional government to tackle the problems that people complained about in their petitions.
Customs officers in Brest recently seized 300 tons of granulated sugar valued at 300 million rubels ($150,000), the press office of the State Customs Committee told BelaPAN.
The shipment was being carried by rail from Poland to Tajikistan, the press office said. An investigation established that the contract for the delivery had been concluded by a Tajik individual entrepreneur and an American company, but information received through the National Interpol Bureau suggested that the company's registration had already been invalidated, according to the press office. The fate of the shipment will now be decided in court.
Epidemiological and healthcare officers, railroad personnel, police and military units in Brest will take part in an exercise scheduled for May 16 to practice the coordination of efforts to prevent a SARS outbreak if an infected person arrives in the city by train, Alla Korzan, chief of the regional epidemiological agency, told BelaPAN.
Unfortunately, the official said, a SARS patient may come to Brest both from Moscow, the Minsk international airport and any western country.
The regional epidemiological and health agencies are preparing "in the most serious manner" to respond to a possible SARS threat, Ms. Korzan said. The regional health authorities have given all necessary information about the disease to all healthcare workers in the region, including those in the remotest settlements, she noted. According her, drugstores have the necessary amount of masks and medicines in stock; medical examinations are being conducted at border
checkpoints and Brest's railroad station; masks have been distributed to border and customs officers.
Ms. Korzan described as a manifestation of "extremely high vigilance" the recent efforts of border guards who got a suspected Mongolian SARS patient off the train bound for Moscow. The diagnosis, however, was not confirmed. "We are not fueling the tension or alarming the population, but just doing large-scale work, preparing for facing the
infection in order to protect people," Ms. Korzan stressed.
28 May 2003