MINSK, 22 May (BelTA) – Nine state programs implemented in 2017 were highly efficient, Belarus' Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said at the meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers on 22 May, BelTA has learned.
“Twenty state programs were implemented in 2017. Responsible customers and financing amounts were determined for all the programs. The efficiency of state programs is assessed by a special interdepartmental commission. According to the summary report presented by the commission, 9 state programs were recognized as highly efficient,” said Andrei Kobyakov. Five programs were recognized as efficient and another five as moderately efficient. The state program Small and Medium-Sized Entrepreneurship will be assessed later, when the official statistics is released.
The Belarusian head of government stated that 14 state programs were recognized as highly efficient in 2016. “I would like to know whether the results of the current year are the outcome of the Economy Ministry's efforts to improve the approaches to assess the efficiency of state programs, or whether this is a failure of responsible customers? The fulfillment of general indicators of state programs is better than last year's. But still it is far from being perfect. Five out of 51 indicators were not fulfilled, which makes one tenth,” he said.
Andrei Kobyakov emphasized the problem of objective planning. According to the result assessment, some of the indicators were beaten several times over. For example, the indicator related to the number of service facilities in regional centers and rural areas was beaten 57 times, the indicator on the events held with the participation of the Belarusians living abroad 10 times. The indicator on fresh water reserves was over-fulfilled three times. “We already discussed these issues at the meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers last year. It seems that the work of the Economy Ministry-led interdepartmental commission is limited to indicator monitoring. We have seen no proper analysis and coordination of customers of the state programs,” the prime minister noted. He asked the Economy Ministry to report on the effectiveness of the state programs, successes, failures and measures being taken to address the issues.
The head of government drew attention to the state programs on roads and utilities. “People often make their opinion about the work of the government as a whole based on how effective these sectors are. For the time being these programs are evaluated by the interdepartmental commission as of moderately efficient,” he said.
So, 12 out of 20 indicators of the state program on the development and maintenance of roads were met while the funds allocated on this program were utilized almost in full (98.2%). “Let me remind you that the head of state gave an instruction to have not less than 7,000 km of local roads repaired by 2021. In fact we have repaired almost 1,500km, which accounts for about 20% of the target. We met a third of the indicators under the state program “Comfortable accommodation and supportive environment” while fully utilizing the allocated funds,” the prime minister noted.
Andrei Kobyakov stressed that 2017 became the second year when the government applied the new rules of financing the state programs. “Programs are drawn up on the basis of the social and economic development priorities approved in the five-year program. Public resources are allocated using the targeted planning method applied in the budgetary process. I think there was enough time to adjust to the new rules. Today, therefore, we have the opportunity to analyze and evaluate the performance of the heads of the government bodies, customers of the state programs,” he said.
