The army introduces corporate cards and cashless payments for soldiersThis year, the Russian military did not become millionaires, but you definitely cannot call them poor. The lieutenant now has about 50 thousand rubles per month, the general - more than a hundred. Shoveling the entire army financial mechanism, the heads of departments came to a completely new monetary scheme. What settlement rules now work in the troops, why at the initial stage did they fail and what is being done to pay the soldiers and the officer in time for the amounts due to them? These and other questions in an exclusive interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta were answered by Deputy Defense Minister Tatyana Shevtsova.
Tatyana Viktorovna, the military in the army has been receiving money for half a year according to the new rules. What did not suit you the old scheme? Would raise people salaries, increased allowances. And then the whole law had to be cooked.
Tatyana Shevtsova: The need for reforming the system of financial support for servicemen in the new conditions was caused by the low amount of monetary allowances and the existing distortions in its structure.
What was it expressed in?
Over the past 20 years, the share of the salary has decreased on average from 80% to 28% of the money allowance, and the number of additional payments for various premiums exceeded 100. That is, there was a gap in the amount of the basic monetary content of the sum of money. A conceptual approach to reforming the monetary allowance system was to create, along with the decision on a significant increase in the monetary allowance, its new structure, the basis of which should be the payroll salary for military rank and military post (on average 50 percent of amount of money).
Proceeding from this, the work was done on the preparation of the draft Federal Law "On the monetary allowance for military personnel and the provision of certain payments to them". It was systematized all the regulations adopted in recent decades. As a result, the average pay for military personnel increased 3-3,5 times, its structure changed. We submerged a substantial part of the bonuses, which did not have a stimulating character, into new base salaries.
The new money allowance system is built in such a way as to maximize the interest of the officer in professional growth. Knowledge of foreign languages, the availability of sports ranks and titles, high class qualifications and other indicators in the service now increase the salary of a soldier.
In the process of preparing the new law, we did not just recount the allowances. They constantly went to military units, looked at how life there responded to the concept of “special conditions of service”, and monitored the conditions for military service by military personnel.
And only after that they decided which category of officers and contract soldiers is worthy of setting a premium for special conditions of military service, depending on the specifics of military service under special conditions and the load accompanying it.
This, if I may say so, is the monetary expression of the essence of the reform. She also has organizational features. Over the past three years, the number of budget beneficiaries in the Armed Forces has decreased from thousands of 6,5 to 400. We have achieved transparency and centralization of calculations, which is important for fighting corruption. Now, the Unified Settlement Center of the Ministry of Defense of Russia (ERC) is responsible for calculating the monetary allowance for servicemen.
Conscripts he serves too?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Of course. For example, the personal data of recruits of the spring conscription of this year will be entered into the ERC database in August, immediately after the completion of the recruiting campaign.
On finance complain HR
Are you not afraid that after delays with army payments at the beginning of the year, people will take such innovations loosely?
Tatyana Shevtsova: I hope this will not happen. The technical failure in the transfer of money, which you mentioned, happened due to an incorrect base of recipients of funds. After all, we switched from cash payments to bank cards. And the banks very carefully check the personal data of their customers. If the surname, name, patronymic and year of birth of a person do not coincide with the information they have, the money simply does not transfer. When in January the funds were credited to the soldiers and officers, banks returned part of the payments to clarify personal data. It turned out that one of the servicemen changed his last name, others issued new credit cards. There were cases when people reported information to personnel agencies not about their credit cards, but about the bank card of their wife or parents.
Simply put, Ivanova Klavdiya Petrovna came to the bank for a money allowance, and the amount was accrued to Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Approximately. When actual errors were detected, the information base had to be corrected. This, of course, took time - two weeks, respectively, and there were delays in payments.
In addition, we had to “dock” the software of the Unified Settlement Center with the work programs of banks, and now we are dealing with 57 such organizations. In some banks, this process took a little time, in others it was slower. But in the end, everyone worked more or less quickly.
In March and April, they prepared a "personal data sheet" and asked all military personnel to enter personal information and bank details there.
It can be said that it was precisely the centralization of payments that allowed the control departments of the URC to identify a criminal scheme involving the financial administration in the Stavropol Territory, where illegal transfers of money to "dead souls" were carried out.
How's that?
Tatyana Shevtsova: The list of personnel agencies contained one list of military personnel, while the other was in the settlement center - the real one. When they were compared, they immediately understood: there are "dead souls". The data transferred to the prosecutor. As a result, the illegally paid money was returned, and a criminal case was filed against the officials of the financial body who were involved in the registry. This served as a serious lesson for us, and so that such facts would not recur, we strengthened analytical control at all stages of calculating and transferring funds, as well as tightened the selection for appointment of managers to territorial financial bodies. Now the candidacy of each of them is first comprehensively studied by personnel and law enforcement agencies, then it is discussed in the departments of the financial and economic unit, after which a draft order is drawn up, and only then the order is submitted for signature to the Minister of Defense.
I understand that the only source of information about military personnel for calculating the money allowance is personnel agencies?
Tatyana Shevtsova: The only source of "personal" information now is the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Russia - GUK, which is responsible for the personal information of servicemen and the accuracy of the allowances established by the serviceman.
GUK prepares draft orders on the size of salaries for the position, rank, what allowances you need to pay, for example, captain Ivan Ivanovich Ivanovich from such and such / h. Employees of the Center are not entitled to make any changes. They are engaged in purely technical work - they make accruals, form registries of recipients of funds, transfer money to the bank cards of servicemen.
If complaints about wrong payments come, the personnel body together with the staff of the CSC also deals with them. Let's say a person says: you pay me a surcharge for special conditions of military service 10 percent, and it should be - 30. And in the GUK find out whether there is a corresponding order, whether the unit commander sent the relevant information to the personnel body.
From personnel officers can not hide anything. And the wife of a military man can clarify with someone how much her husband now receives?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Actually, it is impossible to report a specific amount. Protection of personal data ensures the safety of this information. But in the answer you can specify: your husband was paid a pay in full of such and such a number.
I constantly deal with such appeals. Drew attention to the fact that requests from the military recently became less. As a rule, questions are addressed by their wives or mothers of draftees.
Now detailed information about his payroll for the past month, a career soldier can get in the section "Personal account of a soldier" on the official website of the Ministry of Defense. This program works with 2 July.
But what about the confidentiality of information?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Of course, there is no free access to it. To enter the "My Account", you must enter the personal number of the soldier and a unique password.
"Ё" means - mine
Let's return to delays of payments. The officers wrote to the "RG" that personal lists for payments in some military units were requested on the eve of the New Year. Everything was done in a big hurry, hence the errors in personal data.
Tatyana Shevtsova: I’ll say right away that there was no hurry. Especially since the financiers in the troops already had their own information base, on which monthly salaries were paid to the servicemen.
Another thing is that this database could contain inaccuracies, as I have already said. In military units, everyone knows each other, and when in the statement instead of the name “Chechetkin” stands “Chechetkin”, the patronymic “Gennadievich” is written as “Gennadievich”, the person still received his money in the accounting department. And with the banks it did not pass. The control system of personal data there is serious and debugged. Not there put an end, or in the name of the recipient confused the letters "e" and "e", then the payment will not work. So in order to avoid returns, we rechecked all the data. And also clarified personal data and details.
Do not you think that this process podzatyanulsya?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Today it is adjusted. All military personnel whose data is in the CSC base are consistently paid a monetary allowance.
But, of course, people will always have some questions. Do you charge correctly, take into account my long service? This is the right and mentality of our citizens - to doubt the charges. However, problems existing in a small number are not due to the creation of the Unified Settlement Center. I specifically looked at the number of calls from military personnel last year, when the old money allowance system was still in operation: 5 thousand. And now for six months - also 5 thousands. If you divide them into military districts, you get 250 hits per month. But in order to make them even smaller, commanders, personnel agencies need to more actively carry out explanatory work among the troops.
Again, the possibilities of the “My Account” specified by me will remove a lot of questions. Moreover, there is the possibility to send an e-mail request to the CSC.
But not everyone and not everywhere have access to the Internet in the army.
Tatyana Shevtsova: If a soldier does not have a computer at home, then he is in his military unit. All our garrisons are connected to the Internet.
In addition, the Russian Ministry of Defense provides for the following procedure for the receipt of settlement sheets, bypassing the Internet. Information on the monetary allowance of military personnel is transmitted via communication channels from the ERC through territorial financial agencies to the commanders of military units. So, when visiting the Southern Military District, it was found out that all those who applied for them received payment sheets for May.
With financial information sorted out. Let's talk about cash withdrawal. A person in the city is serving - no problem, I went to the bank and took money from my card. But at the "points" of bank branches there. How to be?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Banks are ready to install ATMs for free in military units.
In order to promptly bring the cash allowance to the servicemen in a cashless manner, active work is being done on installing ATMs in units of the Russian Ministry of Defense with free access within walking distance.
In addition, as part of the monitoring of the situation, in June-July 2012 of the year in the Central, Southern and Western military districts, military commanders were questioned for the absence of ATMs in remote garrisons. The information received from them is analyzed and will be communicated to credit institutions.
And there, where they, as they say, “fall short”, the field institutions of the Central Bank of Russia are working. We have kept them in the new financial structure of the Armed Forces. In principle, they are designed to work in a special period. But even in peacetime, they perform important tasks - they deliver money to remote areas, they serve our military bases abroad. Unless, of course, there are no branches of Russian banks.
We have an agreement with some credit institutions to place their ATMs inside the field offices of the Central Bank of Russia. There are communications and the necessary infrastructure to service the military. Therefore, there are no problems here.
Recruits by cards
As I understand it, recruiting soldiers will also receive money using cards. To the recruits they are given out together with the military uniform at the assembly point?
Tatyana Shevtsova: The distribution of monetary allowances to servicemen serving in military service is also made by cashless transfer of money to their bank cards.
Bank cards are issued to them at the recruiting stations before being sent to the troops. The card is personal, and no one has the right to take it away from the soldier.
A soldier can withdraw money from a card at an ATM on the territory of a military unit or while being in dismissal.
In our opinion, military personnel should be able to pay with their card for purchases at Voentorg. We are already working on it.
Soldier credit cards designed for a year of service, or they can be used after dismissal from the army?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Their duration is quite large. Given that the soldiers are on full state support, then you can leave the Armed Forces with some savings. After all, today conscripts receive thousands of rubles per month 2. And those who serve in the North Caucasus and outside Russia are even more. The official salary of them, as in the contract soldiers, plus additional payments.
The army has already been transferred to the "non-cash". Civilian personnel will follow. And what about military retirees?
Tatyana Shevtsova: We are also considering this opportunity. But there must be an understanding that this cannot be done in the form of an order. Pensioners are no longer servicemen who signed a contract with the unit commander. And non-civilian workers who signed an employment contract with him. Here everything can happen only on its own initiative.
Although many civilian pensioners have long preferred ATMs to queuing at banks. And among our departmental retirees, probably 70 percent are already getting money using cards. But the people who exchanged the sixth dozen, are reluctant to go. Especially if they spend a lot of time outside the city and in the countryside, where using a bank card is problematic.
Sent asked not to worry
A question from our reader, Semushkina VD: "Why do credit cards take into account monetary allowances, but do not calculate travel expenses?"
Tatyana Shevtsova: The existing procedure provides that by November all military units are preparing travel plans for the next year and transmit them to the General Staff. There, these proposals are studied, and after a certain study they say. The General Staff Plan is a guide to action for financiers on how much to bring to military units for travel expenses.
But often travel in the army are urgent and unscheduled. Does an officer have to go somewhere or go for his own money, and then wait for him to return them?
Tatyana Shevtsova: Currently, travel expenses are paid through territorial financial bodies.
And for quite operational expeditions, we assume the issuance of so-called corporate cards. The order of their introduction and use, we are now working.
The corporate card will be the property of the Russian Defense Ministry and issued to a soldier with the sole purpose: to use it to pay for his travel expenses. The account on the card will be limited, but with the possibility of its replenishment. The balance can be found on sms-messages. When a person returns from a business trip, he will have to account for the amounts spent. Here is a scheme.
With the release of a soldier, this scheme does not apply?
Tatyana Shevtsova: No, of course. Now such a thing as vacation money in the army no longer exists. While the person is resting, the monetary allowance is accrued to him in the usual manner, at the time specified for payment. If you want to go on vacation on an expensive voucher - save money in advance on it and on the road. The new monetary allowance for the military, in general, it allows.
But we also approached this issue differentially. For example, for officers and contract soldiers serving in the High North, they retained free travel to a place of rest with one family member. This is a kind of compensation for their heavy service and living conditions. If you want to get such a benefit - transfer to the North, personnel rotation goes there all the time.
By the way, military retirees and their family members still have the opportunity to relax on preferential vouchers in sanatoriums and medical and recreational complexes of the Ministry of Defense.
You say: the military is now well received, they can go on vacation and at their own expense. But some officers complain that before, when they were paid a monthly premium on the 400 order, they had a much larger amount.
Tatyana Shevtsova: By order of the Minister of Defense N 400, a total of 55 thousand officers received monthly payments during the year. These were the selected categories of servicemen of the Airborne Forces, the Strategic Missile Forces, other types and types of troops. That is, money encouraged the conscientious service of the best officers, which is quite legitimate for premium practice.
The increase in the monetary allowance from 1 of January this year affected all, without exception, military personnel. If we take the amounts to be handed out, then, I repeat, their growth amounted to the fair execution of official duties of 300-350 in the percentage of the previous pay.
The content raised, the benefits were canceled. Did that happen?
Tatyana Shevtsova: We made special calculations after the abolition of benefits and the immersion of some allowances in the new pay. "That is for sure," as you put it, does not work. People in any case began to receive much more. Especially, if we take into account that they used the old privileges only from time to time, while for objective reasons someone did not use them at all.
For example, until last year, there was a compensation in the army for the cost of vouchers for school-age children. Its size was determined in 10 800 rubles per child per year. It is clear that childless military families did not receive these payments. And the rest of the officers and warrant officers were deprived of compensation as soon as their sons or daughters left the childhood age.
We analyzed compensations and social guarantees that were canceled from 1 in January in connection with reforming the allowance of servicemen and concluded that the cost of compensation and social guarantees amounted to 2012 thousand rubles per month. And the increase in the monetary allowance of military personnel since 7,1 in January of 1 was 2012-2,5 times.
Thus, the soldiers in the positions of platoon commander, company commander, battalion commander and brigade commander earned a month’s income compared to 2011 for the year increased by 25,7 thousand rubles, 38,8 thousand rubles, 45,8 thousand rubles and 55,6 thousand rubles, respectively.
Thus, there can be no talk of a reduction in the social status of military personnel since January 1, 2012. The difference is quite obvious.
By the way
The new financial system operates only in the army, and so far other Russian ministries and departments have not switched to it.
However, as Tatiana Shevtsova told, as far as she knows, she is recommended to many. There is a chance that in the near future other departments will move to it. In many countries of the world, similar systems have been used for a long time and have proven themselves well.