Navigational waterworks are on a year-long deferment
The initiative of Yury Trutnev, Minister of Natural Resources, on transfer of navigational waterworks (NW) to the jurisdiction of Nature Ministry faced a wave of rebuttal from RF Transport Ministry. The Ministry of Transport has temporally reserved NW for 2007 having received financing for maintenance of such waterworks. The issue relating to who is to maintain and manage NW has been reserved till late in 2007.
Slugged idea
October meeting of RF Government was dedicated to the problems of water resources system of Russia. Yury Trutnev, Minister of Natural Resources, initiated transfer of all navigational waterworks of inland waterways to the Ministry of Natural Resources as a unitary supervisory authority. Transport Ministry of RF insists on non-separability of transport process at inland waterways. It is not correct to separate locks, river fleet and transportation, the Ministry thinks. Any issue may be solved promptly within one ministry, while we are going to collapse if the issues are to be divided between different authorities, PortNews IAA learnt from a source at Transport Ministry.
The issue was delegated to interested federal executive authorities, which were to solve it before December 15, 2006. This term was specified by the Government for the analyses of expected efficiency and possible risks related to concentration of functions within federal executive authorities on management of water industry by a sole federal executive authority considering available experience. However, this work proved to be a difficult one. Late in December 2006, Federal Agency of Water Resources (Rosvodresursy) of RF MNR addressed a letter to the Government with a request to postpone decision making to the end of 2007 since the issue needed deeper analysis.
Essential element
There are 30 000 navigational waterworks in Russia including 723 NW operated under control of Transport Ministry. They are controlled by Russia’s Federal Agency of Sea and River Transport under RF Transport Ministry (Rosmorrechflot). This figure includes 108 locks and Krasnoyarsk canal-lift, 70 dikes, over 160 pressure dams and other structures. According to Alexander Davydenko, head of Rosmorrechflot, poor state of some structures should be attributed to low financing of their maintenance in 1990-ies and the age of NW: 75% of them have been operated for 50-176 years. From 2003, state financing of NW repair works grew 10-fold, which contributed significantly to improvement of their technical state.
All NW ensure inter-basin links, transportation of cargo, goods and people as well as safety of shipping. “Navigational waterworks are essential elements of transport system like any other structures such as bridges and tunnels,” Igor Levitin, RF Transport Minister, told at Transport Ministry meeting dedicated to the problems of NW. “We believe that if NW are excluded from our transport system it may result in decrease of transport process controllability at inland waterways and, consequently, in economic losses for both carriers, consignees and consigners as well as in decrease of shipping safety”.
River transport is one of the safeties types of transport. According to data provided by special committee of EUROPE, accident risk 178 times lower at inland waterways compared to that of motor transport and 13 times lower compared to railway. Fuel consumption per 1 ton of cargo is 8 times lower for transportation by inland waterways compared to energy consumption of a railway locomotive and 26 times lower compared to that of a heavy truck. According to Transport Ministry, Russian river transport system services 26 autonomous republics, territories and national districts and 42 regions of RF, as well as a considerable part of international transportation. Inland water transport carries about 130 million tons of cargo and about 20 million passengers annually.
The efficiency of river transport operation and cost of cargo transportation depends mainly on functioning of Unified Deepwater System (UDS) with the depth of navigable pass of up to 4 meters and length of 6.5 thou kilometers. UDS has no counterparts in the world. It comprises Volga-Baltic, White Sea-Baltic and Volga-Don navigational canals as well as a canal named after Moscow. All of them ensure transport link between five seas. According to European agreement signed by Russia, UDS waterways of Russia’s European part are in the list of the most significant international inland waterways. In future, when Russia’s inland waterways are open for vessels going under foreign flags, it is planned to arrange transportation of cargo and passengers along the Big European Water Transport Circle including Russia’s UDS.
Negative consequences of non-profile management
Alexander Davydenko gave some examples of NW transfer to non-profile and non-transport organizations. “Kuban-river was dammed in October 2005, while navigation locks of Tikhovsky hydro-engineering complex managed by Russia’s Agricultural Ministry have not been put into operation yet, Krasnodar hydro-engineering complex managed by Natural Resources Ministry was in disrepair two years after construction. Navigation lock was not operated for 10 years starting from 1995. Thus, Kuban river shipping company OJSC lost several fields of non-ore construction materials. Operation of river passenger fleet was paralyzed, 90 million tons of cargo flow was lost thus entailing loss of over RUR 20 billion. According to the head of Rosmorrechflot, these negative consequences of taking NW out of Transport Ministry control demonstrate possible results of the project proposed by Ministry of Natural Resources.
Financing
In 2007, Transport Ministry remains spending unit as regards recourses allocated from federal budget for re-construction and modernization of NW. As for 2008, budget calls are also furnished to RF Ministry of Finance from Russia’s Transport Ministry. The budget is to enter the State Duma before April 30, 2007. Thus, those responsible for shipping have not much time to think.
According to Davydenko, rehabilitation and re-construction of navigational waterworks is carried out within the framework of federal special-purpose program “Modernization of Russia’s Transport System in 2002-2010”. Transport Ministry suggests that in 2007 financing should total RUR 247.2 million, in 2008 – RUR 1026.0 million, in 2009 – RUR 1532.0 million and in 2010 – RUR 2740 million.
Risky transfer
Rosmorrechflot insists the agency should remain balance holder of NW. The agency’s head thinks that transfer of these functions to Rosvodresursy may entail a number of risks. First of all, it will be a trespass against the principle of continuous transportation by inland waterways resulting in upset of balanced logistics chain. Traffic handling cost may grow considerably within the system of inland waterways transportation resulting in decreased competitiveness of river transport. Besides, Rosmorrechflot forecasts possible decrease of shipping supervision efficiency, decrease of shipping safety, worsening of conditions necessary for development of transit potential of inland waterways and decrease of interest to Russian Federation at international transport market. If such a decision is accepted it is necessary to introduce plenty of amendments into legislation and regulatory documents, change the system of financing and review financial and economic relations at river transport. “The risks forecasted show that transfer of NW is an unreasonable step,” Davydenko says.
Both Transport Ministry and representatives of shipping companies agree that improvement in management of inland waterways and national water complex should be based on coordination of activities between federal authorities and competent companies and organizations.