"The ministry together with the prime minister and the presidential administration should find a way to eliminate any parallelism in their work. We should concentrate material and professional resources on the priority directions," said the head of state.
The president noted that he did not want to forecast any decisions on the MVD-related administrative reform, and stressed that they should not disturb the normal operation of the ministry.
President Putin believes, the Chechen law-enforcement bodies are above all faced with the task of maintaining law and order, and neutralising criminal groups that often include remaining members of bandit groups.
He remarked that the republic's and local law-enforcers were first of all responsible for this work, as they have both personnel and technical opportunities for this matter. The president stressed, "federal bodies, the staff of the presidential plenipotentiary to the southern federal district were bound to provide them with maximum assistance." This is a national cause, which requires painstaking efforts from all levels of power and all MVD structures, said the head of state.
As for the economic situation in the region, the president demanded that economy be protected against criminal pressure and officialdom. "Despite a number of successful efforts aimed against criminal violations in the economic sphere, criminal and corruption pressure on the economy is still rife, and it is particularly essential in small and medium-sized business." In his opinion, after some authority to combat tax crimes was transferred to the MVD, its opportunities of stemming such crimes have considerably grown.
At the same time, Mr. Putin pointed out, "the police should not get involved in corporate conflicts and disputes between economic entities." "Such involvement demoralises the personnel and reduces the efficiency of this department," said the president.
Mr. Putin also stated the need for developing a civilised legal framework for active migration flows. "This is an important and painful issue," he said.
The president pointed out such a delicate social phenomenon as the increasing number of homeless and abandoned children in Russia. In this connection, he said, the MVD "together with social ministries and regional authorities should put an end to this situation." "We have talked about this many times but no drastic changes can so far be seen in the prevention and combating of juvenile crime," the head of state said bitterly.
"The virtually open human trafficking, drugs and weapons smuggling should be thwarted," said the president.
The head of state emphasised the need to neutralise crimes against individuals, particularly such as "murder, looting, kidnapping and terrorism," stressed Vladimir Putin.
The president qualified the current terrorist acts in the country as the result of law-enforcers' miscalculations.
At the same time, the Russian president remarked that many masterminds and perpetrators of terrorist acts had recently been found. "Even more terrorist acts have been prevented," he said.
"However, we should not forget that even one-off terrorist attacks threaten people's lives, security and public stability. The fact that they do take place is graphic evidence of law-enforcers' mistakes," said Mr. Putin.
In turn, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev believes that crime has reached such a high level in the past decade that it is threatening Russia's national security.
Mr. Nurgaliyev remarked that his department assigned priority to protecting legal rights ad interests of citizens against criminals.
"In 2003, the work was more systematised," he said noting the trend of better reaction to crimes and their registration.
At the same time, the minister said that the number of unsolved crimes had increased by 25% to exceed one million. In this connection, the minister stated the need "to overhaul the way crimes are solved." According to Mr. Nurgaliyev, regardless of whether MVD bodies know about officials' corruption, chiefly low-ranking officials come under investigation.
The minister also attracted attention to the fight against terrorism. He deems it important to bloc financial sources of terrorists.
