Process of paying compensations for lost housing and property in Chechnya to be accelerated

"1,654 residents of the Chechen Republic have got compensations for lost housing and property for the last six months. Another 4 thousand people are expected to get compensations till the end of March. This process will speed up later on. 5-6 thousand people will get compensations every month," chairman of the Chechen governmental committee for compensation payments and displaced persons Abubakar Baybatirov said in his interview with the Caucasian Knot correspondent on March 20. The compensatory sum comes to 300 thousand rubles for completely destroyed housing and 50 thousand rubles for lost property.

Meanwhile, there are numerous abuses and open extortion on the part of functionaries in the course of paying compensations. "In order to receive his/her money, a resident of Chechnya has to give to the functionaries from 30 to 50% of the sum the law provides for him/her. Otherwise the bureaucrats will simply get the man's case caught up in red tap, and the man takes the risk of being left with nothing. Everybody in the republic knows it well," says Dokka Mazayev, a 53-year-old resident of Grozny.

Altogether 39 thousand families are expected to get compensations, according to the committee's data. And the authorities plan to complete the process of paying compensations by the end of 2004.