Minister of Regional Development Igor Slyunyayev has chaired a meeting, whose participants discussed improving the quality of the budget process, formulating and exercising the budget-spending authority of the Ministry of Regional Development and the affiliated Federal Agency for Construction, Housing and Utilities (Gosstroy).
Due to reduced macroeconomic indicators, the specifics of the budget process and conservative forecasts regarding the formation of federal-budget revenues and expenditures, the Minister of Regional Development issued a number of instructions to Gosstroy and industry-specific departments at the Ministry of Regional Development.
For instance, the Minister drew the attention of departments to the need to improve the quality of budget planning; to transition to the comprehensive planning of projects and events, including drafting a programme on design, surveying and prospecting operations for the 2014-2016 period, assessing the socio-economic effect of commissioning specific facilities and a possible multiplier effect; to improve the quality of budget spending, and to obtain reports from Gosstroy and industry-specific departments at the Ministry of Regional Development about the cash implementation of the budget, exercising stringent control over the physical volume of work regarding each capital-construction project and investment-project measures while financing current expenditures. Mr Slyunyayev also noted that it is necessary to improve the methodology for allocating subventions and subsidies to regional budgets to motivate the parties to the budget-planning process to improve the quality of managing capital-investment facilities.
The Minister of Regional Development also instructed Gosstroy and industry-specific departments at the Ministry of Regional Development to analyse the regulatory framework of the construction industry and to improve this framework. For instance, current versions of construction standards and regulations must be updated to reduce excessive requirements and thus to reduce capital-construction costs.
At the same time, the updating and specification of the regulatory framework should not negatively influence the safety of buildings and structures now under construction, the Minister of Regional Development said.
The personal responsibility of officials should become another measure for ensuring cost-effective state-finance management under the departmental budget-spending authority. Senior Gosstroy officials should monitor every construction project financed at federal expense, and they should oversee these projects from groundbreaking ceremonies until their commissioning.
Source: Ministry of Regional Development
