Representatives of the Ministry of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Far East confirmed the information that the project was sent for revision. The reason is banal. The budget is embarrassing, which lists how much money from the federal budget it is necessary to make a “garden city” from the Far Eastern and Trans-Baikal regions.
If you believe the information published by news agencies, the estimate is really impressive. To make the development program a reality for the next 12 years from the country's budget, the authors of the program requested no less than 5,7 trillion rubles. We should not forget that the solution of such transport issues as the modernization of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the construction of new branches of the Baikal-Amur Mainline is a separate line, which determines the level of costs back in 1,5 trillion rubles. The summation of these two values leads to 7,2-trillions of costs, which the state budget must pull.
Apparently, Igor Shuvalov turned out to be particularly impressed with this document after reading the estimate of the program and the financial claims of the group of its authors, and advised the Ministry of Eastern Development to “recount” in the direction of reducing costs. Representatives of the Ministry of the East, in all likelihood, were disappointed by this decision. After all, the program, in their opinion, was whole and balanced. For persuasiveness, the head of the ministry decided to publicize those ambitious plans that were designated by an expert group that worked on the creation of a “slaughtered” Shuvalov document.
So here. In the development program of the region under consideration, the authors envisage a growth of its population by almost 20% over the next 12 years. Who will correct the demographics? Maybe the authors themselves? In principle, yes, but only by using the same budget money for this. To do this, it is planned to allocate each participant of the resettlement program to the Far East for 120 thousand rubles, and each member of his family for another 40 thousand. The Ministry of Development itself is going to become the guarantor of the fact that every family that has arrived in the region, banks (if desired, the immigrants themselves) will be provided with a mortgage loan on preferential terms. Even the allocation of land allotments for the construction of their own homes, the department prescribed in the program.
In addition, the ministry, headed by Viktor Ishaev, who was once reprimanded by President Putin for the sluggishness of work in the new post, outlines plans for growth
a) regional gross domestic product up to 2025 year 2,57 times;
b) industrial production - more than 1,7 times;
c) investment - almost 4 times.
It would seem that if there are such grandiose plans, it is possible even now to single out the trillions of rubles designated by the Ministry of Eastern and Eastern Europe and make the dream of a “city-garden” a reality. But honestly, it’s not quite clear why the experts of the ministry call these numbers exactly. After all, it would be possible to go along the path of even more substantial scale. For example, declare that it is planned to increase the population of the Far East not by 20% over 12 years, but by all 50% ... And so that people withdraw from their old places somewhere in Central Russia, promise not 120 thousand rubles per family, and, offhand, a million, two per person. A trillion more, a trillion less ...
You can declare not about 4-fold, but about 25-fold increase in investment, for which you can request a couple of trillions more from the public sector. Like, and what these trillions are there ... Let it be better for the people, for the regions remote from the center and the richest in resources work.
Of course, no one is going to dispute the fact that the money must work, that the Far East requires serious investments and even the fact that 5,7 plus 1,5 trillion denoted are means necessary for the Ministry of Eastern Development to make the space from Chita to Yuzhno-Kurilsk become Far Eastern Switzerland However, as soon as it comes to billions of dollars, and even more so trillions, requests for implementation, even if it is the program most needed for a country, the notorious vague doubts immediately begin to torment: will everything go exclusively to the development of Transbaikalia and the Far East? Exactly there will not be a dozen or two billion on the account of a certain fake company registered to one of the relatives of some adviser to the author of the program? After all, the more financial inquiries, the more zeros in the figures of hypothetical budget allocations, the greater the chances of interested parties to seize a certain financial burden, let's say, “for the harmfulness of work”.
I would like to believe that in this case, in the case of the Ministry of Eastern Development program, everything will be completely different. That there will be no “Vostok-services”, “Trans-Baikal Slavs” and “Resorts of the Far Eastern Territory”, whose employees in their SMS-messages will call their “colleagues on the shop” to come and share the cake after allocating funds from the state budget ...
These doubts would not have arisen at all if there were no precedents connected with the plundering of budget funds allocated for the implementation of those other programs in our country. But there are precedents, and there are plenty of them. Until now, the investigating authorities cannot count the amount of damage caused to the country's budget in preparation for the APEC summit. The unfavorable facts emerge, either by overestimating the estimates for the construction and repair of roads, then by the theft of building materials, then by violations when transferring land plots from one hand to another.
Doubts would not have arisen because all previous programs have led to positive results. But if they do, not all ...
It is worth recalling that in the current year the deadline for the implementation of the Federal Target Program “Economic and Social Development of the Far East and Transbaikalia for the Period up to 2013 of the Year” ends. The decree on the start of this project was adopted by the Russian Government back in April 1996. The developers of the (previous) program were regional executive authorities, as well as the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. The program was signed by the then Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
The data on the final figures for funding the program, which was developed almost 17 years ago, unfortunately, has not yet been made public, but there are figures for the costs of the program in the past few years. So, for the period from 2008 to 2013, funding amounted to 692 billion rubles, of which 532 billion - funds allocated from the federal treasury, 57 billion - funds of the regions themselves, 4 billion - funds of individual municipalities. Thus, the "extrabudget" was at the level of 14% of total funding. In other words, private investors were not very generous in the amount of financing, although it was the development of private business at various levels that was set as one of the priorities of the program.
How did that program work? This is a separate question. The Ministry of Regional Development reported that the program literally went off with a bang. As an example, the Office cites the following figures: the unemployment rate for the period from 2007 to 2009 year decreased by 0,6% (from 7% to 6,4%). However, the report on the subsequent time interval for some reason remains, so to speak, behind the scenes. Namely, this report would show far from the most positive trend of changes in the number of unemployed citizens. For example, in 2012, unemployment was recorded in 11% in Zabaikalsky Krai, 9,7% in Yakutia, 8,7% in Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and approximately 7,7% in Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories. The best performance was demonstrated by the Magadan region - about 4%.
Official statistics also indicate that investments in private business have increased in the region. Although if we consider the sectors in which private business in the Far East has become interested, in the overwhelming majority of cases these are extractive industries. In other words, the investments of large private owners did not go to high-tech manufacturing areas, but stopped, roughly speaking, at the level of raw materials extraction or at the level of production of metal ingots, transported at best to non-Far East regions of Russia, and in most cases - to such countries like China, Japan and South Korea.
In general, if the government believes that the previous program, which was the federal target, has become more than successful, then the program of the new sample may be announced as such a priori.
But trillions of rubles are at stake ... And therefore, obviously, someone already scratches their hands in order to “begin to develop” the Far East quickly, managing to compile good reports on the expenditure of budgetary allocations. So is it worth it for the government of the country, if it is really interested in the development of Far East and Transbaikalia, to step on the old rake of uncontrolled allocation of funds. Isn't it time to create a streamlined control system that will work according to an extremely transparent scheme: billions are allocated - deliver quality facilities on time, billions are allocated - provide the number of orders for new settlers' apartments, billions more - show how industry has risen and so on. d. And if the first billions are allocated, and instead of real positive results - some pieces of information about “dizzy with success”, then - collect all those responsible for carrying out, tear them away from their leather seats and send them where instead of the road there are pieces of creeping asphalt, and instead of new industrial centers - piles of bricks being pulled apart to the right and left - let them redeem themselves with their work, financing the completion of the program with their personal savings.
Apparently, there is no other way ...