Russians in Tizzy Over Wealth of Prime Minister

When the popular daily Izvestia last week published a front-page report claiming that Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin has raked in $5 billion for himself during his term in office, the public reaction could best be described as stunned silence.

What really riled the Russian citizenry was the government’s counterclaim this week that the 59-year-old prime minister actually earns only $700 a month and owns no property or stock in the country’s richest enterprise--the Gazprom monopoly he ran for a decade.

The controversy swirling around the polar-opposite assessments of Chernomyrdin’s personal wealth has inspired a debate over the need for public disclosure by top officials and better monitoring of their access to the public trough.

“Is it really so hard for us to accept that the financial position of our highest officials should be made open?” asks anti-corruption crusader Alexander Minkin in this week’s edition of the newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

President Boris N. Yeltsin seized on the issue Thursday when he appealed in his weekly radio address for more openness about public spending and the sources of income for the government’s top officials.

Yeltsin denounced official corruption as the greatest threat to the government’s authority, and though he named no names, he appeared to be casting aspersions on his unpopular prime minister by lambasting his own hierarchy for bribe-taking and self-enriching sales of natural resources.

The indirect criticism of Chernomyrdin makes his position all the more precarious after Yeltsin’s recent elevation of two committed market reformers--Anatoly B. Chubais and Boris Y. Nemtsov--to serve as first deputy prime ministers.

Yeltsin may be holding back on an outright replacement of Chernomyrdin solely out of fear that he could not get ratification of Chubais or Nemtsov as a successor by the Communist-dominated parliament.

In a reaction to those reports that was not quite a denial, government spokesman Igor Shabdurasulov told journalists that Chernomyrdin had no plans to sue the newspapers because “their unethical action is unworthy of his attention.”

Still, Shabdurasulov said he had been authorized to disclose Chernomyrdin’s true income: just slightly over 4 million rubles a month, about $700.

As head of Gazprom until his appointment as prime minister in December 1992, Chernomyrdin would have been in a position to acquire considerable stock in Russia’s first privatized concern, which now is a multibillion-dollar enterprise.

But Shabdurasulov denied that Chernomyrdin retains a stake in the huge energy monopoly--a claim impossible to prove or disprove in a country lacking financial disclosure laws.

Coming, though, from a public figure fond of Armani suits, Rolex watches and a flashy Mercedes motorcade, Chernomyrdin’s claim to be getting by on so small an amount has handed political rivals a propaganda bonanza.

“This bureaucrat has been accused of pocketing a sum equal to twice the amount the government owes pensioners. Not bad, huh?” Grigory A. Yavlinsky, a popular liberal at odds with the leadership, commented in this week’s issue of the newspaper Sobesednik.

The Communist-dominated Duma, the lower house of parliament, has demanded that Chernomyrdin and other top officials make full public disclosure of their personal wealth.

Rather than discredit the newspaper reports, though, the government’s efforts at damage control have spotlighted a further discrepancy between the prime minister’s pay and that of the supposedly top-paid officials, including Yeltsin.

Federal law specifies that the president, speaker of parliament and supreme court chief justice should earn the highest state salaries, an amount indexed to inflation and now valued at 1.75 million rubles a month, or about $308.

Chernomyrdin’s claim of earning twice that amount, on top of the usual state-funded cars, homes and security perquisites, has only cast his version in deeper suspicion.

“I don’t believe he makes only 4 million, but I can’t say I would believe any figure he provided,” said Anya Droyanova, a 22-year-old linguistics student at Moscow State University.

“This is just crude populism. He wants to look like he’s one of the common people,” said Tatiana Kurianova, another young Muscovite. “But only 4 million? This not only is doubtful, it insults my intelligence.”