Translated material
Tram of Reluctance
Due to the monetization of benefits, regions stop funding passenger transportation
The reform of social benefits, launched early last year, highlights new problems, the solution of which, it seems, will require additional budgetary funds. However, we are no longer talking about emergency spending of several hundred billion rubles, which the authorities used to quell the protests of benefit recipients in the first months of 2005.Yesterday, at a conference call at the White House, it became clear that it has not yet been possible to achieve one of the goals of the reform, namely, to radically improve the operation of passenger transport. Including the financial situation of transport companies. The hopes of transport workers that thanks to the reform they will have funds for development are not justified.
Despite the fact that in 2005, compared to 2004, revenue from fares in the regions increased by more than a third, the transport complex remains unprofitable. “Unfortunately, this does not allow us to fully implement investment programs to renew the fleet,” stated Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the need to update the urban transport fleet is 12 thousand units per year. In 2005, 7 thousand units were purchased. This year, the head of the Ministry of Transport Igor Levitin predicts, the figure may be even lower.
At the same time, transport workers are asked to look for the “truth” not in Moscow, but from their own regional authorities. The fact is that the local leadership, relying on help from the center, reduces the amount of funding for transportation of privileged categories of citizens from regional budgets. “One of the consequences of monetization was the dependence of the transport complex on federal funding. At the end of 2005, the share of federal budget funds in the total volume of subsidies reached 25%, and the share of regional budgets decreased from 64 to 50% compared to 2004,” said Igor Levitin. The minister assessed this trend as negative, since, according to him, “federal budget funds were allocated as assistance to the regions for the period of adaptation to the reform.” If the trend continues, then, as Mr. Levitin predicts, those 30% of transport companies engaged in intracity transportation that reached the level of profitability last year may again become unprofitable.
According to the government's plans, regional authorities, on the contrary, should increase the volume of covering the costs of transport companies for transporting beneficiaries. Based on these plans, already this year federal money allocated for these purposes is half as much as in 2005 (4 billion rubles instead of 8 billion). “No decision has been made for 2007,” said the head of the Ministry of Transport, noting that if the government decides not to allocate funds from the federal budget, then the prospects for transporting beneficiaries in the regions may turn out to be disastrous.
The logic of regions that are in no hurry to fork out money for urban transport is also quite understandable. The vast majority of them have long been accustomed to living off transfers, subsidies, subventions and other forms of support from the federal budget, and therefore reasonably count on new injections. The hopes of local authorities are also fueled by the ease with which more and more billions are spent. In the conditions of a rapidly swelling budget and stabilization fund (the federal budget surplus in January-April amounted to 655.9 billion rubles, and the volume of the stabilization fund in a month could exceed 2 trillion rubles), only the lazy would not try to beg for at least a little. And there are definitely no lazy people in this regard in the leadership of Russian regions.
Meanwhile, according to the Ministry of Transport, there are still regions that chose not to participate in the monetization of transport benefits, retaining them in kind. There are seven such territories - Moscow, Ingushetia, Kaliningrad, Omsk regions, Evenki and Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Okrugs, as well as the Voronezh region, which decided not to monetize benefits for suburban traffic. According to Mr. Zhukov, in the country as a whole, 11 million people continue to benefit from benefits in kind. Moreover, over 3 million of them also receive compensation from the federal budget.
During the meeting, Alexander Zhukov noted that work to improve the law on the monetization of benefits continues. So, in August last year, changes were made, as a result of which beneficiaries received the right to free travel to any place of treatment and back, and not just to places of sanatorium treatment.