Penza, 17 July 2015. PenzaNews. The Penza mayor Yuri Krivov held a meeting with journalists at the city administration hall on Friday, July 17. At the beginning of the press conference, he described to them the situation with the city budget.

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“Right now we get little tax and non-tax income, which greatly increases the weight of our expense liabilities. For us, the court obligations became a heavy burden: only in the first half of the year we paid over 300 million rubles, right from our money,” said the head of city administration.

He also added that the budget policy is further complicated by the current money market situation.

“We have over 1 billion 200 million rubles of loans. We cannot loan so much right now. To service these loans, we also need funds,” Yuri Krivov noted.

According to him, recently they held a procurement auction and chose a bank to provide the city a credit for 200 million rubles with a 16.5% interest.

“We greatly depend on the possible change for the better, so that we could obtain 500 million rubles of loans more by early autumn. Otherwise, we will have difficulties servicing our obligations,” the mayor stressed.

Nevertheless, the budget remains socially oriented, he noted.

“We do not and will not allow any holdups in wages, subsidies or taxes. This is our number one priority,” said the head of city administration.

Afterwards, the journalists asked the mayor several questions about creation of territorial self-government institutions, urban amenities, land plot management, dilapidated buildings, and city upkeep.

Answering the question about transportation fare, Yuri Krivov noted that both the city administration and “Penzalift” acted solely as applicant parties in this issue and introduced their suggestions on fare levels.

“It is very important for us to not let ‘Penzalift’ follow the example of ‘Penza Passenger Transportation’,” he stressed.

According to city administration head, the current wage in “Penzalift” is 28,000 rubles for drivers and nearly 17,000 rubles for ticket collectors.

“As for private transportation companies, I am not ready to comment on how they fare in this situation, as I cannot monitor them, this is a task of Natalya Klak. She and I are partners, and we did send the requests on our side. So far, none answered it and gave us anything,” he said.

Afterwards, one of the members of the media asked a question about three Toyota Highlander cars that recently appeared in the city administration car park.

Yuri Krivov stressed the cars do not stand idle and work for the sake of the city.

“Not a single ruble of budget money was wasted here. The decision was made last autumn, when, the transport of the previous city mayor, one unit, was returned to the car park of the regional government, and the transport used by the city head moved to the bankrupt’s assets of ‘Penza Passenger Transportation’ and was returned there. Therefore, during the committee on ‘Penzagorstroyzakazchik,’ we decided to use not the money of the Legislative Assembly deputy Vadim Borinshtein, but the money of the municipal enterprise to buy three cars,” he said.

The city administration head added that the decision was right, as it was made before the financial crisis when the cars “did cost different money.”

“I am not embezzling anyone and did not take a ruble out of anybody else’s hands. This car belongs to the city. I leave, somebody else will ride it,” he stressed.

The media also asked the questions about the storm water drains that fail to remove water from streets in several parts of the city.

“It is a paradox that Penza is in the top four cities of the VFD in terms of storm water drain numbers, but this is an urgent issue. We will be installing new drains in Shuist by the houses we built for those people moved from dilapidated housing,” Yuri Krivov explained.

According to him, the drains on Chaadaeva, Izmaylova and Antonova streets are also a priority.

“Overall, there is no disaster. When there is a big shower, these lakes of water disappear within an hour. Days of still water – luckily, this is not the case for Penza, but we must work on the issue,” the mayor noted.