Agenda: Results of autumn-winter heating season for housing and energy enterprises, federal bills and budgetary allocations
Government meeting
Mikhail
Mishustin’s opening remarks:
Good afternoon, colleagues,
Today, we are going to be summing up the results of the recent heating season that has ended in over 77 regions but which continues in some regions, districts and municipalities.
The latest season was rather hard. This past autumn, many Russian citizens had to stay at home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Uninterrupted electricity, heat and other utility supplies were vitally important. On the whole, the sectors have accomplished their tasks.
At the same time, it is necessary to pay more attention to what’s going on at utility infrastructure facilities and residential buildings. For this purpose, we introduced a digital platform for monitoring and controlling cleanup operations at housing and utility facilities. This system records all similar situations in the country, including those not previously recorded in the electricity and gas supply sectors.
However, apart from merely counting the number of incidents, we should expose their causes, in the first place. And we must do our very best to eliminate their consequences and to carry out maintenance work. Today, utility enterprises, energy and electricity generating companies must already start preparing for the upcoming cold weather.
Let’s move to another subject. The Government continues to improve the investment climate. We have drafted amendments that will adjust the mechanism of investment protection and promotion agreements. This mechanism has already made it possible to attract investors into dozens of projects with a stated investment volume of about 1.3 trillion roubles. However, the potential of this mechanism makes it possible to accomplish even more.
From now on, investment volume requirements will go down. They will be reduced from five billion to 1.5 billion roubles for public city and suburban transport, airport terminals and logistic centres. They will be reduced to 500 million roubles for tourism projects. These measures will make it possible to considerably expand the range of potential investors and to involve not only big but also medium-sized businesses in agreements on investment protection and promotion.
The list of reimbursable expenses totaling the volume of tax payments is also expanding. Requirements for documents, due to be submitted with applications for signing these agreements, will be simplified. Additionally, an alternative option for reimbursing infrastructure expenses will be available. It will be possible to use deductions for reducing some tax payments instead of state subsidies.
The agenda also includes a number of social matters. As per the President’s instruction, the Government has prepared two documents specifying liability for evading alimony payments or paying them incompletely. This will make it possible to protect the rights of children or disabled parents in need of support.
Quite often, alimony payment obligations are deemed complete even if an insignificant sum that does not compare with the one stipulated by the court has been remitted. Consequently, children or disabled parents who should have received assistance in full were left without support, and alimony evaders therefore dodged their responsibility.
It is necessary to unconditionally enforce court decisions. Amendments to the relevant codes will allow judges to make equivocal decisions on such cases and will make it possible to quickly deduct alimony payments from debtors. Children and everyone else eligible for these payments will obtain timely support in full.
Support for disabled persons and veterans is another important subject. The President has instructed us to allocate an additional 9.5-plus billion roubles for technical rehabilitation systems.
We discussed this subject with MPs two weeks ago, and the document has been prepared while fulfilling instructions following the Government’s report to the State Duma.
This funding will be remitted to the Social Insurance Fund, so that all disabled persons in need of technical rehabilitation systems would be able to acquire what they need most of all, including wheelchairs, prosthetic appliances, orthotic devices and lots of other items. I would like to point out to the Ministry of Labour and Social Development that people must obtain state support as early as this year.
Let’s discuss the next matter. As per the President’s instruction, the Government has drafted changes to the Law on the Protection of Consumers’ Rights, so as to rule out situations when citizens’ personal data is being collected during the purchase of various goods and services by them.
Quite often, people are forced to provide excessive personal data during any purchases, even when this is not required by the law.
Of course, it is necessary to provide full names while buying air and train tickets. However, no such requirements are stipulated during ticket purchases for many mass events, and salespeople force their clients to disclose this information. They collect people’s telephone numbers, email addresses, driving license details and other personal data under various pretexts.
Fines are now being introduced for such violations of consumers’ rights. Today, we are going to discuss the relevant amendments to the Administrative Offenses Code.
