Moskovsky Komsomolets: “MPs Asked to Punish Themselves”
Marina Ozerova
The Government wants to get rid of the Duma's budget control
"We have no crisis," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has continually repeated as his mantra lately. Yet emergency measures in the budget policy for some reason are needed... Yesterday, the Duma debated a bill that would deprive Parliament of its only significant constitutional right - control over budget spending.
At an extraordinary meeting, the original plan was to discuss several measures that were described, politically incorrectly, by the deputies as anti-crisis. These included the proposals received from the Government recently to amend the Budget Code. The changes would have given the Government full, without exaggeration, freedom to use the treasury and the Reserve Fund.
The Government proposals were partly supported by a Parliament committee and later by the Duma. In 2009, the Government will be able to use the Reserve Fund and the budget (money that, for some reason, was not used in the previous year) without permission from Parliament.
Under the current Budget Code, all such actions must be approved by law. The above-mentioned significant funds can be spent "on payment that reduces debt obligations, loan reduction, and ensuring a balanced federal budget."
Another position that the Duma majority left without putting up a fight was giving the Government the right to invest, without a legal act, in state organisations and state unitary enterprises. The regional administrations have the same right within their territory and their budget.
Having approved an unprecedented extension of government power and reduction of their own power, even the loyal United Russia deputies, who control the Committee on Budget and Taxes, could not meet the Government's demand that the Ministry of Finance be allowed, without changing the law on the budget, to send money from one section to another, from one year to another (within a 3-year plan).
One example would be transferring funds allocated for the agrarian sector to the Ministry of Defence (with a promise to return the money to the Ministry of Agriculture next year.) Moreover, the Government wants to provide financial assistance to business companies without Parliament's approval.
Is there a problem? The current Duma has never rejected a proposal from the Government of Prime Minister Putin, and the Duma is ready to meet at any moment to vote for any proposal from the Government to make changes to the budget. Perhaps the Ministry of Finance is tired of writing amendments, shaping them into bills, and finding explanations for this or that spending.
Yesterday, the Duma began its meeting at 14:00. It was rumoured from the morning that the Government, represented by the Ministry of Finance, would press its point. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was expected to come. He did not come, however, and the bill extending government power was endorsed without the amendment, leaving everyone stunned. The bill was passed only in the second reading, which means that by next week, another attempt could be made. Deputies said that consultations were not over yet and that a mutually acceptable formula was being searched for.
If this formula is "the same but side-view", the doors and windows of the Duma building in Okhotny Ryad should be boarded up and the deputies should be let go, since they are no longer of any use.
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PS State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov told reporters yesterday, "We must protect Russia from the global financial crisis. We have been able to do so thus far, but there is always the need for taking additional steps..."
