Tops Again Start Talking about Cancellation of Special Passage for Officials

Incident with cortege of the governor of Moscow Region Gromov which became the cause of a large road accident in which 17 people suffered initiated serious discussion at the highest levels about cancellation of special passage for officials of high and not so high rank. Deputies of the State Duma, making comments on application made by the head of traffic police related to blocking of highways for government officials, agreed that it's necessary "to observe strictly" equality on the roads, the right of special passage should be used no by all government officials, only the president of the country and the head of the government.

In a course of "Governmental Hour" on April, 10, in particular, there was a discussion of a question with appearance of car jams in Moscow due to the blocking of certain sites of highways for fast journey of officials to city centre. The deputy of fraction of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergey Shtogrin who asked the head of traffic police Victor Kiryanov to comment such cases was the initiator of the discussion.

Kiryanov reminded that blocking moving of the drivers for passage of special corteges, employees of GAI are guided by the law on the objects of state protection. The more so, as he said, blocking of transport streams even for few minutes all the same threatens with huge jams. "But, probably, safety of those who are being accompanied comes first", - Kiryanov is assured.

Meanwhile, legislators suggested to narrow the list of persons who should enjoy special attention. "There are two persons - president and the chairman of the government who, certainly, should move with special cortege. But, if to speak about officials in bulk, I consider they need to cease being the cause of traffic jams", - the head of the committee of the State Duma on transport Sergey Shishkarev is assured. All other officials, according to the deputy of fraction of LDPR Igor Lebedev, should be forced to "get sweated" in city traffic jams and only then "there will be order on the roads".

The member of "Fair Russia" Gennady Gudkov from his part informed that the bill about prohibition of blocking of roads for passage of state employees was being prepared. "We are hardly the only country in the world where the roads are being blocked for the sake of officials", - he declared.

From editorial board: We'll pay attention that conversations on cancellation of privileges for officials start when authorities definitively lose the rests of influence among people and try to support reputation by way of "cancellation of privileges". We rather vividly observed it at the end of Gorbachev's epoch when secretaries of regional committees stopped personal "Volga" round the corner and approached entrances on foot, "as all". Visit of district clinic by Yeltsin was also touching, as well as his excursion trip in public transport.

Though it was then found out that the first president stayed there for only 2 stops and stayed in district clinic for five minutes, once in a life. As to "Volga" of secretaries of regional committees - with a change of the mode they were replaced by""Mercedes" and BMW.

Later one guy called Nemtsov, having occupied the post of vice-premier, tried to start talking about privileges. However he was stopped by default - the "fighter" was asked to leave the government.

If I remember rightly, at the time of Primakov's government the number of persons which used the privilege of blocking the roads was reduced. The prime minister himself went with one escort car using reserve strip and didn't asked to block the road for his cortege. He said me once that he believed that aspiration to block off traffic resulted from nonprofessionalism of the guard - certainly if to block half of the city an hour before departure of the protected person, Federal Protection Service will have less problems.

At Putin's time they started blocking roads for all, even for those who in the Oldies were not permitted to have personal cars. Attempts to appeal to the conscience of officials rested in firm "No!" Pier, we are at war on Caucasus and every more or less appreciable official can become a victim of terrorists and it can turn out so that there would be nobody to point a pencil for the president.

Obviously, now affairs of the government go backward, if they bring up the question about privileges.

If they asked me - I would answer that escort with flasher is a good target. Therefore, as it was one of those days written at our forum, officials should move by beaten "Zhaporozhets", having put out from a window pair of rakes for conspiracy. If there will be no changes, hunting for officials will be carried out not by semimythical Caucasian terrorists but own inhabitants of Moscow and Moscow region who are strongly embittered on bureaucratic lawlessness.

One should speak fairly: "flashers", escorts and blocking - are privileges of pure water, signs of neofeudal society where "departure" is an important attribute of prestige. The fact that thousand people "sweat" in traffic jams waiting for vip-person to pass gives to this prestige additional importance. Just see, what I am! Everybody stay while I move!

They in Europe taste to similar class privileges cured quickly cured 200 years ago by means of a medicine prescribed by doctor Guillioten.

Аnatoly Baranov

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