Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.Part 6
May 26, 2004
The Kremlin, Moscow
Послание Федеральному Собранию Российской Федерации
26 мая 2004 года
Москва, Кремль
Dear colleagues,
Ensuring affordable and accessible healthcare and education and giving people the possibility of buying housing will help alleviate the problem of poverty. We currently have around 30 million people who earn less than the subsistence level. That is a huge figure, it being known that most of the poor people in this country are people of working age.It is evident, that the state and the business community should direct their efforts at continuing to create jobs, especially in regions with persistent unemployment. They should also focus on developing small and medium-sized business and on effective use of targeted social assistance.But only economic growth can provide a genuinely reliable foundation for long-term solutions to social problems, including the struggle against poverty.As was said last year, we are entirely capable of doubling our economic potential over ten years. We can achieve this if we maintain average growth rates at least at the level we had over the first quarter of this year. Furthermore, if we maintain this kind of growth, we can hope to double our per capita GDP not in ten years time, but by 2010. The members of the government are also applauding this means they agree.An essential condition for ensuring a rapid rate of development is to complete the transformations currently taking place in many sectors of the economy and the social sphere.Now I would like to say a few words on budget reform. The main principle of reform is to move from managing budget expenses to managing results. Overall, the government must develop a system for evaluating the plans and results of work of all the executive power bodies and only on this basis should it then sum up results, draw conclusions and make policy adjustments in each area.Clearly set policy objectives and expected results should form the basis for the budget and its long-term planning. The independence the recipients of budget funds have in how they dispose of the allocated money should go hand in hand with responsibility for the results of their work.I particularly want to emphasise that achieving an optimum level of state spending should be a basic principle of our economic policy. We do not have such a lot of money to spend. The government must above all carry out restructuring of the huge network of budget-funded institutions that sprout up all around the country and change procedures for their financing and in many cases even change their status.This brings me to another very important issue. There are currently more than 35,000 federal state institutions in the country, many of which exercise control and supervision functions. These institutions often force their services expert examinations, consultations and other on business and individuals. This year, the government should revoke the powers of those institutions that are not part of the state management system. Moreover, state functions that have been declared superfluous should not be revived at regional and municipal level.Steps also must be taken to bring order to state and municipal property. I have already said that each level of state power should only have the property that it needs to exercise its designated public functions, and no more than that. This should be kept in mind as ministries functions are cut back further.We should also be ready to introduce a new distribution of revenue collection powers and spending commitments between the different levels of the countrys budget system. The regions and the municipalities should know exactly which functions they are supposed to exercise and which public services they are responsible for. And also, they need to know where the funding for these services will come from.Finally, we need to clearly set and delimit each level of powers responsibilities for providing social assistance to the population. All the countrys regions are directly concerned by the problems of ensuring affordable housing, education and healthcare. It would be only right then to actively involve them in drawing up the legal framework and the measures for practical implementation of the social programmes package, taking into account the division of powers between the different levels of state power.
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А мне бы просто снегом стать....wmvby ActivePerik60,625 views
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