These growing economic disparities between the regions almost tore Russia asunder. A clunky and venal tax administration impoverished the Kremlin and reduced its influence (i.e., powers of patronage) commensurately. Regional authorities throughout the vast Federation attracted their own investors, passed their own laws (often in defiance of legislation by the centre), appointed their own officials, levied their own taxes (only a fraction of which reached Moscow), and provided or withheld their own public services (roads, security, housing, heating, healthcare, schools, and public transport). Yeltsin's reliance on local political bosses for his 1996 re-election only exacerbated this trend. He lost his right to appoint governors in 1997 - and with it the last vestiges of ostensible central authority. In a humiliating - and well-publicized defeat - Yeltsin failed to sack the spectacularly sleazy and incompetent governor of Primorsky krai, Yevgeni Nazdratenko (later "persuaded" by Putin to resign his position and chair the State Fisheries Committee instead). The regions took advantage of Yeltsin's frail condition to extract economic concessions: a bigger share of the tax pie, the right to purchase a portion of the raw materials mined in the region at "cost" (Sakha), the right to borrow independently (though the issuance of promissory notes was banned in 1997) and to spend "off-budget" - and even the right to issue Eurobonds (there were three such issues in 1997). Many regions cut red tape, introduced transparent bookkeeping, lured foreign investors with tax breaks, and liberalized land ownership. Bikalova (IMF) identifies three major problems in the fiscal relationship between centre and regions in the Yeltsin era: "(1) the absence of an objective normative basis for allocating budget revenues, (2) the lack of interest shown by local and regional governments in developing their own revenues and cutting their expenditures, and (3) the federal government's practice of making transfer payments to federation members without taking account of the other state subsidies and grants they receive." Then came Russia's financial meltdown in August 1998, followed by Putin's disorientating ascendance. A redistribution of power in Moscow's favor seemed imminent. But it was not to be. The recommendations of a committee, composed of representatives of the government, the Federation Council, and the Duma, were incorporated in a series of laws and in the 1999 budget, which re-defined the fiscal give and take between regions and centre. Federal taxes include the enterprise profit tax, the value-added tax (VAT), excise, the personal income tax (all of it returned to the regions), the minerals extraction tax, customs and duties, and other "contributions" . This legislation was further augmented in April-May 2001 (by the "Federalism Development Program 2001-2005").