Press Release 30.11.2022

Photo: Meeting of the State Council of the Udmurt Republic on 29 November, 2022 / Photo by udmgossovet.ru

Iya Boronina, Chair of the Yabloko branch in Udmurtia, proposed amendments to the regional budget for 2023 and for the planning period of 2024 and 2025. The draft budget was adopted at a meeting of the State Council of the Republic on 29 November. The leader of the Yabloko branch in Udmurtia prepared and submitted to the Council the proposals of Yabloko as a legislative initiative proposing  redistribution of funds in favour of orphans, palliative care and provision of safety in educational institutions.

According to the draft financial document, the amount of income in the draft regional budget for 2023 is 88.792 billion roubles, of which 69.246 billion roubles is the projected amount of tax and non-tax revenues. The second part of the revenue base is revenue from the federal budget, which are set at 19.546 billion roubles. Expenses in the draft budget amount to 89.606 billion roubles. The budget deficit of the republic is projected at 814 million roubles. The bill was presented by the Minister of Finance of Udmurtia, Vera Sukhikh. She stressed that the priority tasks in preparing the bill were to ensure the fulfillment of social obligations to citizens: wages, all social payments and support measures.

Meanwhile, Udmurtia’s budget expenditures on the administration of the head of the republic and the government of the republic, which amounted to 500.8 million roubles in 2022, will grow to 618 million roubles in 2023. Expenses for the apparat of the State Council will amount to 182 million roubles annually, the Central Electoral Commission to 45 million roubles, the functioning of the head of the republic to 6.6 million roubles annually, which is 2 million roubles more than in 2022.

At the same time, according to Yabloko, only 164 million roubles are envisaged for annual provision of housing for orphans for 2023 – 2025.

“This is less than for the apparat of the State Council and three times less than for the apparat of the head of the republic and the government of the republic. Meanwhile, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, as of November 2022, about 3,000 people are on the republican list of orphans who are not provided with housing and have reached the age of 18. The implementation of this social guarantee requires more than 4.5 billion roubles, but the government of Udmurtia does not have money for this. But on the other hand, there are funds to ensure the provision of medical care to people holding government posts – it is planned to spend the same amount on this in 2022 as on all palliative care,” Iya Boronina said in her speech.

The Yabloko party proposed to cut spending on the administration of the head and government of Udmurtia by 200 million roubles annually, the apparat of the State Council – by 50 million roubles annually, the Central Electoral Commission – by 10 million roubles annually, the media – by 70 million roubles annually, and to add these funds for the provision of housing for orphans, and the money from the budget item on the provision of medical care to government officials should be transferred to the provision of palliative care.

It should be noted that the deputies of the State Council did not have a single question for the Yabloko speaker after the speech.