Press Release, 25.06.2015

Grigory Yavlinsky, head of YABLOKO faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, summed up the work of the faction in the spring session.

Yavlinsky noted that the key directions of his work remained budget and budget process, housing and utilities sector, in particular, combined heat and power, as well as long-term development of St. Petersburg. In the spring session this work resulted in seven key legislative proposals in total.

The efforts of the YABLOKO faction led to the formation of a commission for improvement of the efficiency of budget expenditures in St. Petersburg. Governor Georgy Poltavchenko decided to create such a commission basing of Grigory Yavlinsky’s proposal in the fall of 2014, however, the commission was founded only nine months later.

The commission is headed by Governor Poltavchenko, and his deputies are Vice Governor Mikhail Mokretsov and Grigory Yavlinsky. “I am sure that the participation of the Governor in the work will make decisions of the Commission binding,” Yavlinsky noted.

The tasks of the Commission are as follows: analysis of budget expenditures, discussion and drafting of normative acts and regulations, examination of proposals for improving the work of the officials – the measures that will improve the efficiency of budget spending.

According to Yavlinsky, non-transparency of the budget creates a big problem and is prone of corruption. Also Yavlinsky noted that significant budget funds were spent without due calculations and justification. Non-implementation of the budget represented another problem.

YABLOKO’s draft law on the improvement of the budgeting process, which addresses these and many other problems, was resisted by the city administration and the deputies of the Legislative Assembly. Nevertheless, Yavlinsky said that the faction would insist proposing the draft law for a vote of the Legislative Assembly in the beginning of the next session.

According to Yavlinsky, another important project for him was development of the Conceptual Development Strategy for the Metropolis “Greater St. Petersburg. The 21st Century “. The strategy was developed by a group of experts headed by Grigory Yavlinsky.

One of the goals of the concept is coordination of positions on the key issues of urban development between St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region for the effective development of agglomeration the Greater St. Petersburg. It is important that coordination should take place not only between the authorities of the two regions, but participation of the society and business should be also very important.

Yavlinsky stressed that the Concept represented an attempt to create a common model of planning and development for a large city and its region. The strategy was published on the Internet, so that to allow for public comment and experts’ proposals. Grigory Yavlinsky presented the strategy at the First International Forum of Spatial Development:

Another important area of work of the YABLOKO faction was housing and utilities sector. Yavlinsky stressed that this topic was very important for St. Petersburg as it was experiencing large problems in heat supply and housing repairs. This sector had been non-transparent and extremely inefficient. Grigory Yavlinsky said that with the cost of gas several times lower than in Europe, St. Petersburg residents had to pay for heat almost as much as Europeans.

Accordinng to Yavlinsky, the present St. Petersburg heat delivery scheme until 2030, approved by the Ministry of Energy, had never been with experts and contained gross errors.

YABLOKO developed proposals for a radical improvement of the heat and electricity markets and use of energy-efficient technologies. These proposals were submitted to Arkady Dvorkovich, Vice Premier of the Russian Federation.

In addition, YABLOKO developed basic principles for a comprehensive programme of modernisation of the heating system and capital repairs of housing. Such a programme would save an enormous amount of heat and thus significantly reducing the final cost to consumers. Finally Vice Governor Igor Albin made a corresponding order based on YABLOKO’s proposals.

YABLOKO’s proposals for the housing and utilities sector were presented at a round table at the Third Russian International Energy Forum.