Paper attacks Jaunts’

Press, 30 January 1984, Page 10

Paper attacks Jaunts’

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Fact-finding trips by Soviet Government officials too often seem to turn into vacation-style jaunts to regions with pleasant climates, a Soviet newspaper said yesterday. The officials could be better employed, and at less cost, sitting at their desks, the official daily “Soviet Russia” said. Agriculture Ministry officials who had easy excuses for trips to various parts of the country were given as examples. “There are more than a few cases of certain employees fixing themselves up with trips to regions with

a pleasant climate or where their presence is not particularly needed,” it said. A certain Comrade Kalinin, an expert on rice cultivation, spent a lot of time in the sunny rice-growing Krasnodar region of southern Russia. But he was less inclined* to travel to the distant, bleak, but also ricegrowing areas on the eastern frontier with China, the newspaper said. The Ryazan District, south-west of Moscow, has been visited by a total of 148 Agriculture Ministry men for an average of six days each during a five-year plan, but its production figures have dropped anyway, the paper reported.