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Duma postpones budget consideration date
After a long separation due to the summer parliamentary holidays, deputies will finally be able to see each other today at the first plenary meeting of the autumn session of the Duma. Parliamentarians must approve a rough lawmaking program for the fall, as well as a work calendar for September. Meanwhile, it is possible that the main issue of this session - the budget for 2001 - will no longer be included in the September plan.Deputies will have to determine the date for consideration of the budget in the first reading. The first reading was supposed to take place on September 22. However, at yesterday's Duma Council, the majority of deputies said that they would not have time to read the country's financial plan within the time allotted to them. In this regard, the Duma Council decided to give parliamentarians who did not complete the speed reading course four more days and discuss the draft budget at a special meeting to be held on September 26. And on September 22, the government will hear a report on budget execution for the first half of 2000.
However, it turned out that the date approved by the Duma Council did not suit everyone. The Duma Budget Committee recommended that the House postpone the start of consideration of the budget to the beginning of October, which contradicts the Budget Code, according to which the Duma must discuss it in the first reading within a month from the date the budget is received by parliament. That is, no later than September 26 (the government submitted the budget on August 26. - Ed. ). As the chairman of the budget committee, Alexander Zhukov, said, “on the one hand, we are constrained by the Budget Code, and on the other, it would be wiser to postpone the budget until October.”
A solution could be to introduce an amendment to the code that would abolish the time limit for the period of consideration of the 2001 budget . The desire of parliamentarians to push the budget back to October, firstly, is due to the fact that, according to the Duma schedule, from September 25, deputies begin a busy time of work in the districts. Secondly, according to Alexander Zhukov, many deputies have a lot of events planned for the end of September - a PACE session, the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank. However, apparently, the main reason why the Duma members would like to postpone consideration of the budget to October is the desire of single-mandate deputies to consult with their regional bosses. One of the pressing budget issues will certainly be the distribution of income between the center and the regions. The next meeting of the Federation Council will take place only on September 27.
The government will obviously not like postponing the start of consideration of the 2001 budget. Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov yesterday sent a letter to Duma Chairman Gennady Seleznev with a request to intensify work on the budget. “We expect, as this year, that the country will enter next year with an already adopted budget, which is realistic and at the same time allows us not to slow down the pace of socio-economic transformations aimed at improving the well-being of the people,” writes Mr. Kasyanov. The Prime Minister promised that the government would give priority attention to interaction with the Duma. To what extent the deputies will be ready to demonstrate their loyalty to the cabinet will become known very soon. In the meantime, Duma members take advantage of any convenient opportunity to show the White House their special opinion on the draft 2001 budget.