The government apologized to the president for its own impeccability

The results of the implementation of President Vladimir Putin's decrees of May 7, 2012, summed up at yesterday's meeting, did not lead to the expected resignations in the government. Demonstrating knowledge of unfulfilled orders, the head of state nevertheless accepted the White House report: according to Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov, it “works flawlessly,” although only in terms of “timely submission of reports” to the Kremlin. The culprits will still be found later, but, most likely, already among the governors - to their level, according to Vladimir Putin, “the center of execution of decrees is shifting.” The regions may lack more than 4 trillion rubles for this. until 2025 - approximately 330 billion rubles. per year, or 3% of the expenditures of the budget system of the Russian Federation.

Photo: Dmitry Azarov, Kommersant / buy photo

In his report, President Vladimir Putin formulated at least 15 complaints against the White House regarding the implementation of last year's decrees, the annual results of which were summed up yesterday in the Kremlin. Among the instructions, the implementation of which caused the president’s displeasure, were the improvement of the quality of public administration, the lack of proposals for access of small and medium-sized businesses to government procurement, and the lack of a working mechanism of state guarantees. The President also noted the unresolved problem of relocating citizens from dilapidated housing and the unavailability of an exhaustive list of administrative procedures in the construction sector.

Vladimir Putin also recorded the government’s formal decision on the development of the Far East and Transbaikalia. The state program adopted for them is estimated at 3.8 trillion rubles. until 2025, but only 296 billion rubles have been allocated for it. There is also something wrong with the increase in salaries of health workers: the regions received money for this, but it did not reach the workers. The president also noted the formal approach to fulfilling the promise to allocate land to large families. In addition, the execution of presidential decrees is still carried out almost free of charge, although not voluntarily: out of 192 billion rubles. Only 10% of additional budget expenditures are allocated for these purposes.

Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin not only did not scold any of the government members on the spot. He did not even object to Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov’s proposal to believe that “the government is working quite flawlessly.” True, Mr. Surkov made a reservation: there is nothing to object to the president’s criticism, and the “impeccability” of the work lies, first of all, in the “timely submission of reports.” Yesterday, the financial side of the implementation of presidential decrees was equally peacefully discussed. The discussion of whether the president gave or did not give instructions to the Ministry of Labor to postpone the implementation of certain stages of the pension reform from 2014 to 2015 also passed almost without conflict. In any other situation, this dialogue would have looked like the threshold of a disaster for the head of the Ministry of Labor, Maxim Topilin, but the conflict on May 7 in the White House was obviously not needed by anyone. Moreover, the key problem - the need to increase consolidated budget expenditures for the full implementation of decrees by approximately 3-4% with a confirmed course of stabilizing real expenditures and reducing their share in GDP - during discussions of the topic, by general unspoken agreement, is kept silent both in the Kremlin and in Bely house since the same May 2012.

In addition to the deficit of funds mentioned by Vladimir Putin in the amount of 3.5 trillion rubles. for the development of the Far East and Transbaikalia, the head of the Ministry of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov openly added a shortage of 750 billion rubles. until 2015 to eliminate queues in preschool institutions. Thus, a year after the decisions were made, we are talking about at least 4.25 trillion rubles. didn't end in anything. The shortage of funds on other orders of the president was not publicly discussed at all yesterday, and the search for those to blame was clearly postponed until later. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov promised to correct the mistakes. But Vladimir Putin prudently recalled that “the center of execution of these decrees is largely shifting this year to the regions.” Other invitees also pointed out problems with implementation at the regional level. Mr. Livanov blamed not the Ministry of Finance for the lack of funds for kindergartens, but the regional financial departments. The head of the Ministry of Health, Veronika Skvortsova, accused the authorities of 34 constituent entities of the Russian Federation - for doctors, 28 constituent entities - for nursing staff, and 52 constituent entities - for junior medical personnel - for reducing salaries instead of increasing them.

The search for those to blame among the governors (they are still closer to the citizens) will obviously continue at the next summing up of the implementation of the decrees. At the same time, yesterday Vladimir Putin promised: then “we will judge the implementation of decrees not by papers, but by how the quality of people’s lives has changed.”

Petr Netreba, Dmitry Butrin

A session of self-criticism followed by exposure