| The Accounts Chamber wants to revise the Budget Code in its favor The Accounts Chamber launched an attack from three sides at once, seeking to expand its powers and establish de facto hegemony in state financial control. A draft law on the territorial bodies of the joint venture has been in the State Duma for about two years, and recently the Federation Council submitted to the lower house draft amendments to the law on the Accounts Chamber.
And now a new direction of attack has emerged. At the beginning of the year, the joint venture sent a letter to the president with another bill, this time on amendments to the Budget Code. If the chamber makes even a small hole in the blank wall with which the Ministry of Finance has surrounded it, seeking to put an end to the expansion of Mr. Stepashin’s department, the joint venture can triumph.
Sergei Stepashin's initiatives caused a sharply negative reaction from the government and the Ministry of Finance. In its response to the bill, which had already been submitted to the Accounts Chamber, the Ministry of Finance did not fail to note that, in accordance with the Constitution, the joint venture does not have a legislative initiative to change and regulate the budget process, and this should nullify all of Mr. Stepashin’s initiatives.
In its proposals to amend the Budget Code, the Accounts Chamber insists on the same provisions as in the bill amending the law on joint ventures. In particular, the chamber proposes to transfer the functions of state financial control only to structures formed by legislative bodies, and the chamber itself is referred to in the bill as the “supreme body of state financial control.” Both of these provisions cause dissatisfaction in the Ministry of Finance, since they exclude executive authorities from the financial control system and eliminate the control functions of the Ministry of Finance itself. Giving the joint venture the status of a “supreme body” in the control system is, according to representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the government, a violation of clause 5 of Art. 101 of the Russian Constitution.
The Accounts Chamber proposes, among other things, to introduce mandatory provision to it of any information it requests from the Ministry of Finance, state extra-budgetary funds and the Central Bank. This should become the basis for transforming the joint venture into the highest body of state financial control. According to the Ministry of Finance, such a broad interpretation of the chamber’s right to receive any information goes beyond the constitutional provisions of this body and violates the “Central Bank Law”, since it encroaches on the independence of the Central Bank.
In the scheme proposed by the Accounts Chamber, the Ministry of Finance, which today is one of the main controlling structures, is assigned a modest function of methodological support for internal control and coordination of control activities. The organization of the internal control procedure should, according to the idea of the joint venture, belong to the government, but the chamber reserves for itself the verification of the effectiveness of the internal control bodies. Moreover, the joint venture also insists on granting it the right to audit the financial activities of the government.
By proposing essentially identical amendments to the law on the Accounts Chamber and the Budget Code, Mr. Stepashin’s department is trying to build a possible future system of financial control in the country where the chamber will be given a leading role. And this will give her unlimited opportunities, including in personnel matters.
To implement the ideas of Mr. Stepashin and his circle, it is enough to pass at least one of the three bills through the Duma. Amendments to the law on joint ventures will inevitably entail changes to the Budget Code, and vice versa. And then a green light will be opened for the draft law on territorial bodies of the Accounts Chamber - the country's main control body simply cannot work without local divisions. Anna FEOFILAKTOVA |
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