Each program has a nanny

Yuri Luzhkov will create his own system for monitoring the work of industry departments

In a fit of unprecedented self-criticism, the Moscow authorities admitted that the bureaucratic apparatus, with a sufficiently secure city treasury, is literally stalling under piles of volumes of city sectoral programs, the effectiveness of which is difficult to assess. “Executive authorities often use programs as another tool for extracting budget funds for industry expenses,” said Marina Ogloblina, head of the city’s economic development department, at a regular meeting of the capital’s government yesterday, reporting on the results of the economic activities of industry departments.

According to Ms. Ogloblina, often the documents in accordance with which sectors of the urban economy are developed “duplicate both activities and the costs of financing them,” which leads to an unbalanced expenditure of budget funds. According to the city’s economic development department, 40 programs are currently being implemented in Moscow, the total funding of which is about 350 billion rubles. The largest expenses are planned by the curators of the target programs “Capital Education 4” (54.4 billion rubles), “Electronic Moscow” (19.9 billion rubles) and “Environmental Program” (18.5 billion rubles). And if some city departments, with a reduction in funding by 15-20% compared to previously announced expenses, manage not only to fulfill, but also exceed the plan, then others do not even have time to spend the requested funds. In addition, often increasing funding does not lead to achieving the set goals. The main scourge of the executors of the city’s economic plans, according to Marina Ogloblina, is the focus on “the development of funds from the city treasury, and not on the results obtained from them.” “Thus, the “Capital Education 4” program adopted in July 2005 stated that in order to solve the problem of kindergartens in the city, 67 buildings must be built and reconstructed in three years. In fact, 216 buildings have been built, and there is still a waiting list for children,” Ms. Ogloblina criticized her colleagues. In some cases, as, for example, with the programs “Capital of Multinational Russia”, “Patriotic Education of Youth” and “Capital Health Care”, according to her, it is completely difficult both to select evaluation indicators and to summarize any specific results of financial costs .

Chairman of the Moscow Chamber of Control and Accounts Viktor Dvurechensky also agreed that only seven existing city sectoral programs more or less comply with city standards for the development and implementation of such expenditure documents adopted in 2006. He is alarmed, in particular, that along with the fact that from next year the approval of all city programs will become the exclusive competence of the mayor's office, about 20 programs financed from the city treasury are not reflected in the appendix to the budget, available for control by the Moscow City Duma. “We need to close all loopholes so that programs that are not aimed at results are not adopted by the Moscow government,” said Mr. Dvurechensky. The chairman of the Moscow Chamber of Control and Accounts proposed taking the criteria for the effectiveness of executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation developed by federal officials as a basis for analyzing the work of industry departments of the city.

However, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov insisted on exclusively internal control of city management systems. “These are different topics,” the mayor asked not to mix the internal corporate policy of the mayor’s office with the national one. “We need to introduce an institute of program directors. Each document must have its own director,” said the mayor. In his opinion, a personal manager and the fiscal department Moskontrol, which already exists on the staff of the mayor’s office, are sufficient to monitor the effectiveness of the work of industry departments.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO