MOSCOW: Russia yesterday unveiled an ambitious revision of a state assets privatisation drive that is now valued at $50bn but keeps the Rosneft oil giant under firm government control.
The new three-year plan through 2016 emerged after the energy-export-driven country’s main economic officials went through a list of all the big enterprises that still remain in state hands. Privatisation is emerging into a vital source of income for Russia because of its recent economic under-performance with many fearing that the country may slip into recession by the end of the year.
One of the most notable revisions of the mid-term programme was the decision not to see the government’s control of the Rosneft behemoth — Russia’s biggest oil company and the largest listed energy firm in the world — fall to less than 50 percent.
The firm is headed by Igor Sechin — one of Russia’s biggest powerbrokers and a close associate of President Vladimir Putin. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev appeared to take an open swipe at Sechin for managing to save his company from going mostly private. “We should say this out in the open,” news agencies quoted Medvedev as saying.
The failure of past privatisation programmes “can be traced to the pro-energy lobbying of specific government agencies and individual officials,” said Medvedev. “These people are ready to kill themselves before they allow something to be sold off, seeing them lose control of the corresponding property.”
Medvedev never mentioned Sechin by name in the unusually frank remarks and may have also been referring to other energy lobby officials. AFP
