Russian Merchants Warn of Serious Price Hikes Due to Platon Toll Payment System, Target of Truckers' Strikes
Manufacturers and merchants of staples warned Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of the likelihood of sharp price hikes as the New Year's holiday approach due to the introduction of the Platon toll payment system, the target of truckers' strikes,
RBC.ru reported.
Twenty trade organizations including the Fish Union, Grain Union, and National Meat Association have appealed to the government citing problems with equipment shortage and
technical difficulties. Small and medium freight companies without sufficient trade volume are refusing to take deliveries,
Kommersant reports.
The Milk Union calculated that the existing tariff of 1.53 rubles per 1 km (about 2 cents) will lead to a rise in the price of 1 kg of milk (about 2 quarts) by 1.2 rubles; the increased tariff planned (3.73 rubles per 1 km or about 5 cents) will add 2.5 rubles to the cost of milk (3 cents).
Truckers from a range of regions from Nizny Novgorod to Dagestan have been organizing strike convoys to protest the new higher road tolls on the Moscow Ring Road surrounding
the center of Moscow. But their activism was dampened last Friday December 5, when
police blocked them in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow after a 13-kilometer traffic jam was created.
Some truckers from Dagestan reported that they were unable even to leave the republic -- traffic police stopped them and made them sign statements that they were not going to Moscow to protest and took down their license place numbers and ID, Magomed Badayev, a driver from Khasavyurt
told Gazat.ru. "Then we understood we were powerless. Now I am headed to Moscow with an ordinary run to deliver freight."
Later Gazeta.ru
reported that the traffic hold-up had been caused not by the truckers' convoy, but by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and their security escort as they visited a disabled children's center.
Earlier the truckers had achieved a delay in the plan to impose heavier fines for overweight loads, but vowed to continue their strike until they were abolished, although some observers though they were winded by the official pushback.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that the topic was only the concern for the Ministry of Transport, but then propagandists stepped up sentiment against the strikers,
deploying Aleksandr Zaldostanov, leader of the Night Wolves motorcycle club and participant in the Anti-Maidan movement to urge truckers to sacrifice for the good of the Motherland. Social media filled up with massive numbers of tweets from bots claiming to be truckers' daughters afraid a Maidan might start in Russia.
Even so,
says Gazeta.ru, the truckers remained in a protest camp and regrouped, and in the mean time picked up support not just from the Communist Party of Russia Federation,
which had staged a demonstration in support of their cause, but also the LGBT movement, Gazeta.ru reported.
The Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBT for Justice staged a picket in St. Petersburg and released a statement,
Znak.ru reported (translation by
The Interpreter):
An additional tax, collected by a non-competitive private company from small business during crisis times contradicts not only the promise moratorium on tax hikes promised by the government but common sense. The exorbitant appetites of the private company for its activity -- 10.5 billion rubles a year from the budget when there isn't enough money for the most needed medications is a truly a mockery.
Their reference was to Arkady Rotenberg, a close associate of Russian PResident Vladimir Putin whose company owns Platon.
Despite the growing animosity to Platon, the government is doubling down. Today December 10, Vice Premier Arkady Dvorkovich denied the claims in the producers' appeal, and while admitting that the new tariffs "may have an effect on prices," this would be "only by tenths of a percent,"
RIA Novosti and RosBalt reported.
He said he would meet with the heads of the food unions and "discuss everything in a calm vein."
He discounted the need to declare a moratorium on the tariff hikes, or to withdraw the Platon system, which went into effect November 15 and is due to increase after March 1. The funds collected from it go into the federal budget and are then distributed to the regions "including for state and private partnership." As Dvorkovich
explained:
We calculate that the total volume we will receive next year will be more than 40 billion rubles and this will enable ut to allocate a payment to the concessioner and use the money of the road fund for specific investment projects.
Critics of the system are concerned about corruption and kickbacks, as they were with the huge contracts obtained by the Rotenberg brothers in the Sochi Olympics. Russia's lack of good highways is a major impediment to development, and Russian Railways, which takes the place of a highway system in many remote areas has cut back service and has been
the subject of allegations of corruption.
-- Catherine A. Fitzpatrick