ALEXEY VEDEV: “CRISIS DEMANDED URGENT SOLUTIONS”

Alexey Vedev, Head of Financial Studies Department of the Gaidar Institute, commented to “Kommersant” on the system of state regulation during a lockdown.

According to Alexey Vedev, decisions taken in April and May were quasi-military, when there was an urgent need to quickly curb the outlined discontent.

“Actually, the crisis demanded urgent solutions. However, this does not mean at all that we have changed the system of bureaucracy. The decision-making process, as is known fr om the theory of systemic analysis, consists of two parts: the first is the preparation of required information, and the second is the actual decision-making. Thus, the first point was and remained problematic. For example, when decisions referred to a small business in May, no one knew wh ere it stood. Moreover, we will find out about it only in the middle of next year, when Rosstat provides data for 2020, and not earlier.

Another example: The Ministry of Economic Development predicts the economic decline in 2020 by 3.9%, the Bank of Russia expects a fall by 4.5–5.5, however, by the end of Q II the decline was 8%. In fact, all our fast decisions have been taken amid high uncertainty and insufficient information. This is a serious problem, fraught with unpredictable consequences," the expert believes.