Dmitry Butrin, Alla Barakhova, Natalya Bespalova
President Medvedev dissatisfied with the Government's performance
President Medvedev expressed dissatisfaction yesterday with the Government's performance. According to the President, anti-recessionary measures are being applied more slowly than necessary, and the tasks with which he commissioned the Government last autumn have only been a third completed. The Kremlin argues that it is not at odds with the Government House. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Putin is criticising officials for the same failures.
President Medvedev spoke about the Government's ineffective performance at yesterday's meeting on issues of stabilising the national industry at the Salut machine-building plant in Moscow.
"The implementation of the anti-recessionary plan is happening more slowly than we expected and, more importantly, more slowly than the current circumstances require," the head of state said, adding, "Many things are simply taking an inexcusable length of time."
In President Medvedev's opinion, this is by no means a simple situation: the volume of industrial production between October and December last year fell by over 6% every month on average, compared with the same period in 2007, and most businesses have quite serious deficits in their cash reserves. According to Mr Medvedev, the interest rates on credits have increased, with additional demands made on companies to secure their credits; all this has led to several businesses operating at a loss.
President Medvedev also noted that last October, he gave a series of tasks to the Government, but "only 30% of what was envisaged has been carried out". "We must come to terms with all of this," the President said.
Since September 2008, the head of state has given the Government less anti-recessionary tasks than Prime Minister Putin, at least in public, as the latter has chaired more meetings on crisis-related issues. The meetings on anti-recessionary strategy and tactics, held by the President, usually summarised the initiatives discussed at Presidium meetings and meetings of Deputy Prime Ministers.
The only time when the Government pigeonholed the President's task was when setting up a fund to support large companies - the President voiced this initiative at a meeting in Kurgan on December 11, but it was simply a proposal, not a strict instruction. In late December, the Government reported that it will only allocate funds to back companies without setting up a specific body for this purpose, with these funds distributed via state-owned banks, the Finance Ministry, and the Central Bank. Other presidential initiatives, including income tax benefits on securities transactions (a corresponding instruction was issued last September) and a reduction in the span of VAT return to exporters to 30 days (instruction issued last November) are either being considered by the State Duma or are being worked out. According to President Medvedev, such tasks account for 70% of the delayed initiatives. It should be noted that the Government is still debating the soundness of the majority of such initiatives.
As a rule, Government members do not procrastinate with the Prime Minister's tasks; Mr Putin has an obvious advantage because he directly controls decision-making in the Government House at all stages via the Government's Staff. It should be pointed out that the practice of the President and Prime Minister's weekly meetings, where President Medvedev could assign tasks to the Government via Prime Minister Putin, was retained after Mr Medvedev assumed office. Nevertheless, these meetings are usually held behind closed doors, and the tasks given at such gatherings have never been made public.
It is not the first time this month that President Medvedev has criticised the Government. For example, on December 11 during his visit to Kurgan, the President lashed out at the Government for protracting the adoption of the law on the Central Bank's representatives in private banks. When he asked Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina what stage the law is at and heard in response that it is "probably" at the Finance Ministry, Mr Medvedev blew his stack. "I raised this question at a meeting three weeks ago. If you or the Central Bank had objections, you ought to have told us how it should be going from your point of view, but you didn't say a word. So now I would like to state it publicly: You are to complete everything and introduce the bill in the Duma within a week. I am charging Sergei Ignatyev (Central Bank Chairman - Kommersant) and the Government with the task," the President stated.
A week later, when the State Duma was set to consider the presidential anti-corruption package in the second reading, Mr Medvedev demanded that the bills be passed practically unchanged. When drafting amendments to the package, a proposal was put forward to enact the norm that obliges officials to disclose property and income statements in 2010, rather than 2009.
However, a high-ranking Kremlin official assured Kommersant that the Kremlin and the Government House are not at odds and are pursuing the same agenda - at a recent Government meeting, Prime Minister Putin also demanded that all tasks be fulfilled in due time. According to Kommersant's interlocutor, President Medvedev was simply citing a controlling directorate, which is common practice with the Government. At the same time, the Kremlin official emphasised that the President did not refer to the volume of decisions fulfilled; rather, he spoke about the timeline, which should be observed during the crisis.
Head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation Mikhail Vinogradov points out that the President said yesterday that "only 30% of what was envisaged has been carried out," and at the final meeting on December 29, he was more emollient. However, the expert doubts that the reproach concerned the Prime Minister personally. "After all, it is Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov, not Prime Minister Putin, who is in charge of the anti-recessionary plan," Mr Vinogradov believes.
Dmitry Badovsky from the MGU Institute of Social Systems believes that there was nothing new in the President's speech, and on the first working day of the new year, such statements "are of psychotherapeutic character, aimed at encouraging the Government to work after holidays."
