Translated material
Investigative Committee
The Ministry of Finance wants to legalize the mechanism of control over state corporations
The Ministry of Finance has put forward a new legislative initiative - to write a single law for all existing state corporations. This proposal was made by Deputy Minister of Finance Tatyana Nesterenko. It is not yet entirely clear what aspects of the activities of state corporations will be regulated by the new law. Now the greatest concern, primarily among the expert community, is the fact that the accountability of companies spending public money is not formalized by law. A representative of an influential agency, perhaps for the first time, publicly acknowledged the need to enshrine such provisions in a regulatory document.When each state corporation is created, a separate federal law is written, then a charter, memorandum of activity, etc. are adopted within the corporation. The head of state appoints the head of the corporation. True, state corporations as a form of doing business in our country are regulated by the law on non-profit organizations. And the state is not the owner of these structures; the ownership in them is neither private nor state.
Critics, including the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development, find various defects in the system of relations between state corporations and the authorities (not to mention the influence of these structures on market relations). And, for example, the chairman of the Accounts Chamber, Sergei Stepashin, was worried that he might not get access to company reports. He warned that, in his opinion, there should be no obstacles to inspections.
And now Deputy Minister of Finance Tatyana Nesterenko, in full accordance with the consistent position of her department, has admitted that the transparency of resource management of state corporations remains an unresolved problem. The solution is the adoption of a single framework law regulating the activities of state corporations. “We need to adopt a framework, model law,” said Ms. Nesterenko. She is concerned that the activities of state corporations are now regulated by different laws and this only complicates control over their activities.
At the same time, in certain laws that form state corporations, there is a rule that establishes the right of the Accounts Chamber to audit the expenditure of funds. True, so far only Rosatom has come under control; such a clause has not been included in the laws on other state corporations. But it seems they can wait: not the last person in the financial department points out the need for clarification on this issue. “Here (in checking the activities of state corporations. - Ed. ) elements of control are very important. Perhaps we will return to this issue in the future,” said Ms. Nesterenko.
Nevertheless, the idea of adopting a unified law may clash with the idea itself, or more precisely, with the goals of the activities of state corporations. After all, each of them was created for different tasks. In some cases - purely sectoral, highly specialized, in others - just intersectoral or infrastructural, some are tied to a specific period of activity (for example, the state corporation for housing and communal services or "Olympstroy"), others - clearly for a long time...
As for regulating the macroeconomic effects of the activities of state corporations, the responsibility lies entirely with the government and monetary authorities. They, according to Deputy Minister of Finance Tatyana Nesterenko, can and should limit state corporations in placing resources on the financial market if this leads to inflation: “In this case, the Central Bank should say “stop.” The question is not that state corporations do not generate inflation, but the question is how they will allocate temporary resources.”