Do not offer striptease

The Cabinet of Ministers will still become transparent

When the government talks about information openness, ministers and heads of departments seem to start to get scared of themselves. The draft resolution “On ensuring access to information about the activities of the government of the Russian Federation and federal executive authorities,” finalized and submitted by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade for the second time to the Cabinet of Ministers, still causes concern among many heads of these same executive authorities.

Yesterday, ministries and departments tried to settle claims and disagreements inside the White House. Some progress has been made; citizens, despite the resistance of some officials, in the near future will obviously be able to receive information that is currently inaccessible to them. In particular, legislative activity, information on the expenditure of federal budget funds, the results of inspections, conditions for holding auctions, tenders, etc. will be almost completely open. But still, this draft resolution apparently faces a difficult fate. At the cabinet meeting on February 6, where it will be considered for the second time (the first attempt took place on December 26), the fears of fearful cabinet members will be heard again. First of all, we will talk, as usual, about money - where to finance all this information openness. The resolution, however, already contains an answer to this question - using funds from the federal target program “Electronic Russia” and the expense item “Informatics”. It is clear that the Ministry of Finance will be reluctant to give money to ministries and departments for these purposes, but here, apparently, the cabinet leadership will have to explain to financiers how important information openness is. Another position on which, apparently, members of the cabinet will still argue is the implementation of the regulation. They are not happy that they will have to open in three months. “We won’t have time to prepare,” say ministerial officials. The government staff promised to help make it on time - that is, for each item on the list of information intended for publication, its own methodology, volumes, and deadlines will be worked out.

And of course, ministers and heads of departments are pathologically afraid of “excessive openness”, they say, why publish the composition of the competition commissions, because then pressure will be put on its members, etc. At the last cabinet meeting, Minister of Health Yuriy Shevchenko, with characteristic medical tact, warned his colleagues: they say, there is no need to openly go as far as striptease. However, the arguments regarding pressure on members of competition commissions did not work, since it is known that those who want to put pressure do not need publications, they are already in the know.

Vera KUZNETSOVA