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The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
Brief outline of the speech of Boris Maltsev at the XLIII Duma Session The last month will be best remembered for numerous remarkable events of different scale and significance.
The Government of France are showing a sound example of how even in the face of strikes, transport collapse, slump of their own ratings the authorities reach their goals – budget savings. Both chambers of the French Parliament adopted the pension reform proposed by the President. And this was amid riots raging in the streets of French cities. I am calling upon you to look at the situation not only as viewers but also as politicians.
Sothern regions of Russia were hit both by natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In Krasnodar Territory the flood damaged almost two thousand houses in 29 villages. The flood losses management was discussed yesterday by the President and the Governor of Krasnodar Territory. On October 19 in Chechnya terrorists attacked the parliament of the Republic. The assailants’ raid was rapid and yet it kept everyone on tenterhooks.
In October our country held a nation-wide census of population. This year the census will be also held in India, China and the USA. Thus, by the end of the year almost half of the world population will be counted.
The most significant event in the life of Tomsk Oblast was, certainly, local elections.
In Tomsk Oblast the party United Russia won at all levels of elections. Opposition represented by the Duma parties failed to convince the voters in their intentions to “live and work for people”. In the meantime, when the country has a palette of opinions, when it has powerful parties supported by voters, activity of the civil society will be multiplied.
Unfortunately, most of the parties focused on criticism rather than on specific actions. And people want changes for the better, to endure fewer problems in the society and in their lives. Yet tangible changes can be made only with daily meticulous work.
Average turnout at all election levels in the Oblast was 39.26 %, in Tomsk 33.20 %. It is sufficiently high. Can you guess how many people attend local elections in other countries? In France the local elections turnout is 35%, in the UK 37%.
Today, the United Russia and the local authorities are focused on economic security of Tomsk citizens. The next elections will be held in a bit more than a year, so all deputies regardless of their party affiliation need to hurry up with keeping their promises and gain the voters’ confidence.
About the budget
“We (and the global economy) are faced with several hard years. This is both due to a decrease in demand for home-made goods and the fact that the oil price will not be high enough as before, and the ruble strengthening will be not rapid. We have a moderate growth ahead. In order to make Russian budget deficit-free in 2011 the oil price should be 109 US dollars for a barrel,” said the Minister of Finance Aleksey Kudrin. Now a barrel is still a little higher than 80 dollars. As for our Oblast budget, it is becoming more and more dependent on the national budget due to the regulations set forth by the Russian State Duma. This year this dependence costs almost 11bn rubles. For the time being, the proposed draft budget for 2011 lacks almost 7bn rubles of the federal money. This money is required to maintain at least the level of the current year.
In fact, next year we are short of more than 7bn but 17bn rubles; particularly (based on the data from the Audit Chamber) for medicine 2.2bn rubles, for construction of nurseries 4bn rubles (to solve the problem within 5 years we need 20bn rubles), for education 1bn, for roads and junctions 3.5bn rubles. ...This gap in financing has always been a target for criticism and complaint of our citizens. How to increase the proposed budget by 17bn rubles when the federal budget has tremendous deficit which will be brought to nought in 5-6 years only? I cannot come up with an answer to this question.
However, despite obvious drawbacks of the 2011 budget strategy its tactics has some positive trends. Tax and non-tax revenues to the proposed consolidated budget are planned with an increase by 1.7bn rubles.
Almost two thirds of the Oblast budget expenditures will be allocated for socially important objectives such as the social policy, culture, education and health care. Social security expenditures of the Oblast budget will grow by 300m rubles and come up to almost 4bn. Allotments to fulfill public normative obligations (monetary payments to citizens) are increasing by 1.2bn rubles. From June 1, 2011 adjustment for inflation by 6.5 % is planned for the wage pool of the Oblast and municipal institutions financed by subventions from the Oblast budget.
To support the production sector expenditures of 1.5bn rubles are planned.
Still, the deputies have lots of questions to the authors of the budget – being technically adequate, it can still be challenged. We cannot agree to reduce expenditures as compared to the previous year by 7bn rubles. We cannot accept so modest a growth of our own revenues of 1.7bn rubles. We are really thinking of adding 1.5bn rubles there. The budget fails to cover a dramatic increase in wages in medicine and education, pre-school education, housing and public utilities sector, and other domains.
We support the Governor’s idea to pay teachers a $1,000 salary and would like to put forward a proposal to develop a program aimed at fixing average wage in the Oblast at $1,000 level in 2012 already. We need to invest effort to solve these problems. The deputies have lots of questions on the target programs, specific categories of citizens, specific communities.
About the agenda
Considering the results of elections into Tomsk and Seversk City Dumas we need to solve a number of serious staffing issues today. We need to reshuffle the staff reshuffle in a way that the well-adjusted mechanism of work of the Tomsk Oblast State Duma keep on running like clockwork. It is not that easy to lose 4 competent deputies at once (almost 10 % of the Duma), anmong them a committee chairman and a deputy Duma Speaker.
Along with the budget we will review the bill on the Program of Socio-Economic Development of Tomsk Oblast for the coming 2 years. It is required for the conciliation commission to take its control figures as a basis while refining the budget. The Program shall be supported from our budget.
We are intending to review a number of bills aimed at social support for our citizens. They deal with subsistence minimum of the retired, children’s allowances, and benefits for young professionals.
We will keep on working at the objective to acquire the Ombudsman of Human Rights and Ombudsman for Children in Tomsk Oblast in the nearest future. These are two very important institutions of the civil society. Among the most relevant issues for us in the light of the recent events is the fact that the whole country is concerned with the outrage towards the civilians expressed y some police officers.
I think we do make it right to make provisions in the forthcoming budget to not only fund the institute of the ombudsmen, but also to support the police by increasing this item by 23.8 % versus the current year levels.
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