Parliamentarians Considered Implementation of the Union State Budget-2009

A meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly Committee for Budget and Finance took place in Minsk on February 18th 2010, reports press service of the Union State Parliamentary Assembly.

A meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly Committee for Budget and Finance took place in Minsk on February 18^th 2010, reports press service of the Union State Parliamentary Assembly.

Deputy State Secretary – member of the Union State Standing Committee Albert Stepanov noted that last year budget revenues had been executed 101%.

“Last year budget implementation went on badly. However, we managed to reach a fairly high index of cash execution. In 2006 this index made up 56% whereas in 2009 it amounted to 87.5%,” he said.

Talking about faults, Albert Stepanov paid attention to the fact that in 2009 some union programmes, including the ones aimed to equip external borders with necessary facilities, didn’t draw the funds in full measure.

Deputy Head of Finance and Budget Policy Department of the Union State Standing Committee Olga Karyakina noted that in 2009 more than RUB 500 million remained in the union budget as the parties hadn’t managed to approve one of the programmes in time. Moreover, RUB 300 million remains as unused target cash balance for 2009. It will be used in 2010 to finance the same programmes. Underexpenditure of the union budget funds was registered in some Belarusian ministries and departments (Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, State Customs Committee). They were not able to draw the funds due to some internal objective difficulties, including purchasing procedure.

All in all, in 2010 revenues of the Union State budget made up RUB 4872 million: including Russian assessments – RUB 3167 million, Belarusian – RUB 1705 million. Expenditures of the union budget cover 42 programmes and other events. The share of the expenses for fundamental research, industry, energy sector, construction and transport makes 35%; activities in the area of military and technical cooperation, law enforcement policy and security – 39%; social policy, public health, education and culture – 19%, upkeep of Union State authorities – 6%.

Besides that, deputies together with the members of the Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Security, Defence and Crime Control considered the issue of financing union programmes in the area of security, and notably the following programmes “Programme aimed to equip external borders of the Union State with necessary facilities for the years 2007-2011”, “Implementation of information technology in the area of common customs processes on the territories of the Union State participant states”, “Creating a common system of technical cover for region’s railway”.