The salaries of the budget-funded employees in the Transnistrian region will be increased. Raises will be given to those workers whose current salaries are lower than the value of the minimum consumer basket, estimated at 736 Transnistrian rubles (about $87), Info-Prim Neo’s field correspondent reports. A decision to this effect was recently adopted by the Transnistrian lawmakers, who passed relevant amendments to the 2008 Budget Law. Following the raise, the salary of the inferior medical personnel will approach the salary of the doctors; that is around 780 rubles ($92). The measure will cost the budget of the breakaway republic some 40 million rubles ($4.7m). To counterbalance, the separatist authorities intend to raise the fines established by the Criminal Code of Transnistria. Local analysts consider that in order to close the budgetary gap created as a result of the raise, the region’s government may again make use of the money intended for the gas delivered by Gazprom, as it happened last year, when the funds earmarked for the gas bill went to pay pensions. In the second half of this year the Transnistrian authorities will continue compensating pensioners for the bread price hike, with the financial support of the Russian Federation. While in the first half of the year the monthly compensatory sum released to a pensioner was 25 rubles ($3), in the second half it will drop to 10 rubles ($0.85).