Still No Money Available… :: Charter'97 :: News

In no time after the turn of the year the government passed the state budget for the year 2003, which envisages only 25bln rubles of expenditures for the Chernobyl privileges, whereas over the past year the accumulated debt on the matter exceeded 16bln rubles.

It turns out, however, that the state owes 16bln to the Chernobyl invalids and also to those specialists who had once been sent to work in the radioactively contaminated zone. Monetary compensations have never been paid to the people, living in the vicinity of the polluted epicenter. Meantime, the sum keeps growing since the very moment of the catastrophe.

For over four months now the folks have been getting no Chernobyl allowances, although this money is the only source of income for many of them. Students, who suffered from Chernobyl, get only 50% bonuses to their stipends, while mothers, who are on maternity leaves, are supposed to get twice as much as the rest. And so there come numerous phone calls with people wondering when the money will finally be paid.