ILYA SOKOLOV: “IT IS CRITICAL TO SAVE PUBLIC FUNDS IN A SITUATIO OF DEFICIT BUDGET N”

Ilya Sokolov, Head of the Budget Policy Department at Gaidar Institute, commented to “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” on the reform associated with the optimization of development institutions (DI). According to Mikhail Mishustin, the Prime-Minister, their functions overlap with federal executive authorities and commercial organizations.

The Cabinet of Ministers analyzed the activities of the major 40 existing development institutions, which showed that their operations do not correspond to the achievement of national development goals. The purpose of the transformations is to create unique mechanisms for managing these institutions and exclude the overlapping of their functions with public authorities and commercial structures.

“Development institutions were established for the sake of good and correct goals, however, none of them can boast of their full implementation, and for most of these goals, no more than 50 or even 10% have been met. According to our estimates, the amount of budgetary funds provided by financial DIs from 2007-2019 amounted to Rub 4 trillion. This refers to DIs that provided specific financial business support. As a

result, we record rather high costs for own maintenance and a low level of coordination between DIs related to creating mechanisms for investment, innovation, digital lifts, as well as a different level of translation of budget funds into final investment projects,” Ilya Sokolov commented.