Tatar-Bashkir Report: August 17, 2005

E-Government Expected To Reduce Red Tape In Tatar Cabinet
Tatarstan's cabinet will establish a special agency responsible for maintaining the republic's electronic government, RFE/RL's Kazan bureau quoted cabinet information and analytical department head Aleksandr Yurtaev as saying on 16 August. The project for creating e-government will begin this fall after the Kazan millennium celebrations and will combine the efforts of republican officials and Microsoft. Electronic government will allow Tatarstan residents to perform various formal procedures on the Internet with the help of electronic signatures. However, Yurtaev said the focus of the program will be on optimizing the circulation of documents between Tatar governmental agencies.

Kazan Residents Asked To Host Millenium Guests
Kazan Mayor Kamil Iskhakov addressed the residents of the Tatar capital with a request to host some of the guests of the city's millennium celebrations, as the number expected to come already exceeds the accommodation capacities of the city administration, Tatarinform reported on 16 August. Kazan residents are being asked to submit information of housing premises for rent and whether they would like to have guests stay.

TARI Parents Unhappy With Tatar University Merger
Parents of the students of the former Tatar American Regional Institute (TARI) hired a lawyer after what they consider an improper merger of their institute with the newly formed Tatar Humanitarian-Pedagogical University, RFE/RL's Kazan Bureau reported on 16 August (see "RFE/RL Tatar-Bashkir Report," 15 August 2005). Not all of the TARI students were offered adequate replacements for their courses in the new university, while in May 2006 the intitute's license will expire, making it unable to complete graduation procedures for those entering their last year in TARI.

Complied by Iskender Nurmi

Ufa Budget Gap Filled By 'Voluntary Donations' From Local Firms
Oliya Porseva, deputy head of the Ufa administration's financial department, told reporters on 16 August that 58 percent of this year's 310 million-ruble ($11 million) city budget deficit was filled by the previous year's budget surplus and 42 percent was covered by "voluntary donations from local enterprises, most of them from the construction sector," an RFE/RL Ufa correspondent reported the same day. In Porseva's words, the donations were not refundable and represented a deliberate expression of the will of local businessmen.

Compiled by Iskender Nurmi