The second session of the new government, to be held on Thursday, is to consider a new version of the Forest Code – a document the government tried to endorse many times last year but failed. Two governmental agencies in charge of preparing the forest legislation, that is, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and the Ministry of Natural Resources, failed to agree with each other, and with regional governors, on the basic principles of the use of Russia’s forest riches.
The newly-appointed PM Mikhail Fradkov apparently considers the Forest Code to be politically quite neutral, because it was included in Thursday’s session agenda, whereas the issue of tariff rates for natural monopolies was excluded.
According to Gazeta.Ru sources, the new government staff has already moved to defer consideration of the land legislation, initially scheduled for 25 March, until June. The discussion of the draft law on joint-stock companies, drafted by the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, has also been taken off the priority list. That document has been of great interest to all Russian businessmen, concerned at Economy Minister German Gref’s earlier pledge to legally ban closed stock companies and step up control over the activities of limited liability companies.
The first session of the newly appointed government held last week made no radical decisions. The cabinet discussed the new lineup of the government, in which the new ministers seemed to understand even less than the head of the government who had just returned to Moscow from abroad. (Before being appointed PM Fradkov served as Russia’s envoy to the European Union in Brussels.)
Those in the corridors of power have no idea whatsoever about how the new government will operate during the next two or three months as long as the redistribution of powers in the cabinet continues. (In a move to streamline the government’s structure Vladimir Putin has halved the number of ministries from 30 to 17.) As of today, most of the ministries and departments that were in charge of drafting governmental bills have either been disbanded or are being reformed.
Hence, it remains unclear who will report to the government on the work just completed: either the outgoing officials or those who have just taken up their duties. In such an ambiguous situation most officials prefer to steer clear of any decision-making out of fear of making some mistake and losing their post as a consequence.
Even more so since the new, somewhat hastily constructed government structure gives no answer to the question as to which agency is in charge of what issues; what the functions of the newly formed ministries are and who is in charge of controlling whom.
For instance, it is still unclear how the State Statistics Committee will work now that it has been subordinated to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, which is in charge of macroeconomic forecasts. Would it not seem strange then if the ministry’s forecasts fail to coincide with actual economic results, regularly released by the statisticians?
Just as unclear is the fate of the tariff agency (the Federal Tariff Service): whether the service will report directly to Mikhail Fradkov or to German Gref.
The work of all the ministries, governmental departments and directorates is, in fact, paralyzed. In private, employees of the disbanded Ministries of Property Relations, Communications, the Federal Service for Financial Recovery and Insolvency admit that since last week they have been braced for their imminent dismissal from their work places. They continue to arrive at work everyday, waiting for their fate to be decided and at the same time are looking for new jobs.
The new structure of the government has proved somewhat chaotic. Most top officials have retained their posts yet their functions have changed. This means that many draft laws and ideas may have to be reconsidered. The Finance Ministry has already established a precedent by announcing a change in its stance on the implementation of tax reform.
It is absolutely unclear which laws the government is likely to submit to the lower house for consideration over the next three months. There are now serious grounds to assume that the State Duma will not pass any crucial legislation by the end of its spring session
The previous session was not particularly fruitful either, as well as the first two months of the new Duma’s work. At the same time, it is unlikely that there has ever been such a period of debate on the importance of reforms in all spheres of public life in the history of modern Russia as the past six months in the build-up to the elections.
But the fact remains, that namely in the past five months the lawmaking activities of the government, and hence the parliament, have been virtually paralyzed.
It may seem that the ministries have held regular sessions, took some decisions, that the prime minister signed some orders and some papers were then forwarded to the State Duma, but no tangible results were achieved. Indeed, the residents of the Far North can consider themselves lucky. Their problems eventually caught the Duma’s attention after having been ignored by the state for many years. The electorate as a whole should also be grateful after the attention was given to their fears that their right to vote would not be violated during the presidential campaign.
Among other achievements is the passage of the 2004 federal budget, the adoption of several laws on the pension system reform and a series of insignificant amendments to the Tax Code in the first reading. And that’s it.
Since the newly elected Duma of the fourth convocation began its work earlier this year, it has still not come up with anything new either. The deputies have continued looking into the problems of the residents of the Far North and voters prior to the presidential elections. The previous parliament at least had a clear-cut agenda which included the consideration of some interesting laws. The new Duma has very little to brag about.
In September–October 2003 the previous Duma had planned to review ‘priority’ draft laws on insolvency, concessions, nationalization, and on state-run and municipally-owned unitary enterprises. The lawmakers had also planned to pass several chapters of the Tax Code, and to consider important legislation on water resources and forestry.
All those draft bills for some reasons were put on hold, and what their further fate is to be neither those in charge of their passage in the Duma committees, nor in the ministries, can say.
For instance, consideration of amendments to the law on insolvency, deferred from autumn last year till February, never took place. It remains to be seen when the house will review amendments to the law on insolvency of credit organizations concerning the compulsory insurance of bank deposits for private individuals.
The law on self-regulated organizations was put on hold after being approved in the decisive second reading. That law, forwarded from German Gref’s agency to a Duma committee in charge of its passage, has never made it to the plenary session. According to Gazeta.Ru sources, it was taken off the agenda at the request of its author, German Gref himself.
Oil companies, not without some reason, also fear they may lose licences for the exploration and extraction of mineral resources.
It is more and more unlikely that the lawmakers will manage to fulfill its work plan for the spring session already endorsed by the Duma Council, the house’s agenda-defining body. On 31 March the house was to review amendments to the Land Code, but the government has postponed its consideration till June.
The plan also includes consideration of tax reform legislation, but the government is set to revise that as well. And some drafts may never reach the house at all. For instance, the bill on nationalization, whose authors believe the chances of it being approved are even lower than those for the law on concessions.
18 МАРТА 17:17
