| Reform is not the enemy of budget revenues First Deputy Head of the State Customs Committee of the Russian Federation Leonid LOZBENKO is confident that the reorganization of customs will not lead to a weakening of its law enforcement functions, as well as to a reduction in payments to the budget. He spoke about this in an interview with the Vremya Novostei newspaper.
— Leonid Arkadyevich, at the beginning of the year the customs service said that it would certainly fulfill the government task of collecting payments to the budget. And the goal was even set to collect a record amount - 1 trillion rubles. to the treasury. Do you now remain as optimistic about government reform, including customs? And where is the line in customs reform beyond which the collection of this money will be in jeopardy?
- The very fact of reorganizing the committee into a service is undoubtedly a thoughtful and understandable step. There is the Federal Border Service, the Federal Security Service, and now there will also be a Federal Customs Service. We are now under the auspices of the MEDT. True, some of the issues related to money will come under the control of the Ministry of Finance. But the main curator remains the MEDT. We hope that the two ministries, thanks to their weight and influence in the state’s economy, will help us implement the planned program of action. Customs has previously worked closely with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Ministry of Finance. But then we only coordinated our documents with them, but now we have become directly accountable. The punching force and power of the two ministries will act as a “plus to plus.”
If this level of relationship and understanding is maintained, then there will be no problems raising money. And I will even assume that we will be able to work to ensure that trade turnover becomes more intense and there is more income. If there is support, we will do it.
-- Could the ongoing reorganization somehow weaken your law enforcement positions?
- As of today, as far as we know, there are no such plans. I am absolutely convinced that it is impossible to make a customs official disabled by cutting off one of her legs. After all, the two functions of customs - fiscal and law enforcement - are inextricably linked.
- Recently, President Putin formulated almost a national idea - to increase the country's competitiveness. Can customs somehow help in solving this problem, is there a basis for this?
- In my opinion, in the current economic conditions, our customs service is one of the most important players in the field in which the president obliged us all to ensure the competitiveness of the Russian economy. I'll explain why. Last year, GDP growth was announced at about 7%, of which 3.5% was due to foreign trade. Customs actually works with foreign trade, creates conditions for it, and collects money for the budget. The President calls on all departments to set ambitious goals. We have set ourselves an extremely ambitious goal - to become one of the top five customs administrations in the world by 2008.
We will have a customs service of the Russian Federation, which will meet the criteria of a modern customs service in all main indicators. The first is infrastructure, the presence of checkpoints, customs posts and communications between them. Secondly, the legal framework is based on international standards. As you know, the new Customs Code has already come into force. Third, human resources that are able to implement all this. Fourth, information technology, without which today it is impossible to cover billions of dollars in flows. We want to not be seen anywhere, but to be everywhere. In general, the following task is set: control in the form of a service. Interviewed by Elena PRONINA |
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