OREANDA-NEWS. January 20, 2009. They discussed the political, social and economic situation in the region.

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: I’m pleased to have this chance to visit you and take a look at the situation here.

It has been three months now since you took office as President of the Republic of Ingushetia. Today, we will discuss together the Republic’s social and economic problems and also issues regarding security, the fight against crime, and any other issues you might want to raise of course.  

I have brought with me a group of colleagues from Moscow, and they will also take part in the big meeting later. Now, you and I have a chance to exchange information on the current state of affairs. It is no secret that there are a great many problems in the Republic – social and economic problems and other sorts of problems too. 

These are all issues that you have to address in your daily work. But I think that the work now underway will make it possible to settle many of these problems fairly quickly.

One of our tasks now is to maintain balanced budgets in all of the country’s regions, and the Republic of Ingushetia is no exception here. The objective is to maintain social spending within the parameters we planned and continue implementation of the big programmes, including the programme here for the development of southern Russia. We are also looking now at setting up a special programme specifically for Ingushetia. This is also something we will discuss today. 

We need to do everything possible to ensure that our various undertakings, in particular the work you have been carrying out through the national project framework, are not brought to a standstill by the current financial difficulties. This work needs to continue. This concerns education, healthcare, housing construction, and a number of other areas to which it is our duty to give our attention today.  

We will also discuss the social and political situation in the Republic, look at how to build up the required level of support for the policies currently being carried out, and also take all necessary steps to maintain a sufficient level of security here. This is a key task because the crime situation here is very complex and the crime rate is high.   

I know that you have already begun working on these issues, and you can inform me now on the situation. Later, together with our colleagues who are responsible for these matters, we will also examine the provision of support for the relevant initiatives. 

Let’s begin our discussion with these issues then. This is only quite a short visit, but I think we will have an intensive discussion and come up with the needed solutions.