Allegations Dog New Privatization Boss

Critics of newly appointed privatization chief Vladimir Polevanov claim his tenure as top administrator of the Far Eastern Amur region was fraught with shadowy financial dealings.


The government spokesmen whose job it is to explain why President Boris Yeltsin put Polevanov in charge of Russia's most visible reform program, however, paint him as a blameless but bland bureaucrat and are hard pressed to say much else about him.


Polevanov, named Tuesday to replace State Property Committee chairman Anatoly Chubais, is virtually unknown in Moscow, but managed to kick up some dust in Amur in just 13 months as regional governor, if the vehemence of his critics, both former communists and reformers, is any yardstick.


Just two weeks before Yeltsin appointed Polevanov, a sprawling article in the newspaper Rossiiskiye Vesti accused him of massive misdirection of state funds and abuse of power during his tenure in Amur.


In the article, headlined "The Golden Governor," Albert Krivchenko, regional leader of the pro-reform party Russia's Democratic Choice, accused Polevanov of a long list of improprieties, such as illegally placing over $1 billion in state funds in the control of Zeya, an investment fund Polevanov allegedly helped to found.


The editor of the local newspaper, Amurskaya Pravda, echoed the allegations in a telephone interview Wednesday, calling the newest addition to Yeltsin's reshuffled cabinet a "totalitarian" leader and crooked bureaucrat who channeled funds to Zeya.


"We have good evidence that state funds were used by the company, brought in profits, and then were sent on their way," said Anatoly Drozdov, reached in Amur's capital, Blago-veshchensk.


"It turns out the best way to become deputy prime minister is to be the hero of a criminal article," said Anatoly Belonogov, a leading local legislator and longtime opponent of Polevanov.


State Property Committee spokesman Arkady Yevstafyev dismissed the charges, but hardly came galloping to Polevanov's defense. He said privatization officials were not worried because their old boss, Chubais, will retain much control over sell-offs in his new position as first deputy prime minster in charge of the economy.


Asked how the officials felt about Polevanov, Yevstafyev said, "Just fine, because Anatoly Borisovich (Chubais) is still going to be working on these questions. Not as closely or in as much detail, but he is going to be dealing with them on a slightly higher level."


Yevstafyev said Chubais, who has described Polevanov as a "professional," supported the appointment because Polevanov "always had a very good attitude toward privatization."


But Yevstafyev said he did not know of any special accomplishments of Polevanov's; privatization in Amur, he said, had gone forward "normally" on his watch -- neither faster nor slower than elsewhere.


Government and presidential officials tossed questions about Polevanov from desk to desk like a hot potato.


Presidential spokesman Alexander Orfyonov said it was Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, not Yeltsin, who nominated Polevanov. Chernomyrdin's top spokesman, Valery Greshin, said only Chernomyrdin himself could say if that was true.


Neither could any presidential staffer be found to explain why the scathing article -- illustrated with a collage of a man kicking his feet up onto his desk and exuberantly tossing rubles and stocks into the air -- appeared in Rossiiskiye Vesti. Despite an increasingly independent editorial line, the newspaper is nominally linked to Yeltsin's administration.


Yeltsin's press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, referred the question to presidential adviser Alexander Livshits, who could not be reached.


Polevanov himself has had little to say since the appointment, which was "100 percent unexpected" for him, he told Interfax. He said he would concentrate on "management of state property," especially natural resources.


Drozdov of Amurskaya Pravda said Polevanov tangled with everyone in Amur, from federal officials to local opposition legislators like Belonogov, who cannot forgive him for dissolving the Soviet-era local council after the October 1993 coup attempt.


Polevanov made still more enemies when he defeated legislators' illegal attempts to keep firms from outside the region from competing for Amur's rich gold-mining rights, wrote Krivchenko in the article. But afterwards, Krivchenko wrote, Polevanov:


?improperly helped Tokur-Zoloto, a firm in which Zeya holds a 7 percent share, to win a tender for rights to a gold mine. When Tokur-Zoloto foundered, Polevanov allegedly bailed it out with state credits intended to help supply Russia's northern regions with food and fuel;


?illegally put Amur's $1 billion mortgage fund under Zeya's control and allowed Zeya to distribute 1 billion rubles ($300,000) in state credits for a 15 percent commission;


?impoverished the local budget by granting favors to gold-mining companies, and then illegally siphoned off 5 billion rubles from the region's medical insurance fund to cover expenses;


?fought to have critics fired or declared mentally unstable;


Polevanov, who was en route from Moscow to Amur on Wednesday, could not be reached for comment.