Press Release, 17.12.2020

The Ryazan branch of Yabloko calls deputies of the Ryzan City Duma to decline the draft budget of Ryazan for 2021 and the planning period of 2022-23 when considering the document on December 17.

According to Konstantin Smirnov, Chairman of the regional branch of the party, there are at least three reasons for this:

1. Expenditure items of the budget are not properly planned, the budget does not contain any specific estimates, and thus, the financial operations of the city administration cannot be controlled.

2. Incomes of the city have fallen sharply, expenses for the needs of citizens will decrease by 18.5 per cent as compared to the previous year. However, the expenditure on the city government, administration and the City Duma were cynically left at the same level, these expenses exceed a billion roubles – more than 10 per cent of the budget.

3. The draft budget contains openly faked items of expenditure like maintenance of mythical “neighbourhood watch volunteers”, which the townspeople have never seen anywhere. The administration and the City Duma continue the practices of budget-financed contracts with the media through fictitious tenders for “coverage of activities”, actually paying for censorship in the press at the expense of Ryazan residents.

Budget revenues in 2021 will amount to 10.519 billion roubles, while the expenditure part will amount to 10.916 billion roubles. At the same time, tax revenues are planned at the level of 4.339 billion roubles, non-fiscal revenue at the level of 615.5 million, non-repayable receipts from higher budgets will amount to 5.564 billion roubles.

Photo from the official website of the Ryazan City Duma