MINSK, 8 June (BelTA) – Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko evaluated the effectiveness of implementation of government programs in 2016-2020 at a session of the Council of Ministers' Presidium on 8 June, BelTA has learned.
Roman Golovchenko said: “21 government programs, which are subject to evaluation, were implemented in the previous five-year term. The total volume of funding was Br357 billion, including over Br111 billion appropriated by the state budget. Some program measures and events that shape the quality of life of the population were implemented well. For instance, housing availability per capita rose to 28.3m2. About 7,700 social and transport infrastructure assets were created, including for people with disabilities. About 7,500km of local automobile roads were repaired and reconstructed. According to the final report, 48% of the government programs are classified as highly effective and effective. The effectiveness of the other programs is average.”
Roman Golovchenko also drew attention to alarming trends. “The share of highly effective programs dropped by the end of the five-year term. One fifth of all the targets were missed. Some of the targets were missed throughout the entire period of implementation of government programs. Those include the ratio of the arrears to proceeds from sales in agriculture (the Agrarian Business program), the share of the gross added value of small and medium private businesses (the Small and Medium Entrepreneurship program),” the prime minister noted.
According to Roman Golovchenko, not everything is well with regard to the measures taken as part of government programs. “The projects envisaging digital sick leaves, paperless trade, automation of administrative procedures, digital schools, and the system of administration of government finance were not implemented or were implemented incompletely. There are a lot of unfulfilled measures as part of government programs on energy saving and housing construction,” he said.
Economy Minister Aleksandr Chervyakov told reporters later on that budget appropriations represent about 30% of the funding of government programs. “Resources are channeled into specific tasks. We want every budget ruble to produce results,” he stressed.
In his words, the government programs “People's health and demographic security”, “Education and youth policy”, “Hospitable Belarus” were recognized as highly effective. “Certainly, it is very important to analyze problems as well. There are prerequisites that deter the construction of infrastructure. A number of problems are related to major motorways and local roads, bridges, amelioration,” the economy minister noted.
Aleksandr Chervyakov also mentioned what novelties the government intends to implement in the current five-year term. “The first novelty is related to the evaluation of effectiveness of government programs. We will evaluate results not only at the national level but at the level of every region. As for the second novelty, the Economy Ministry is designing a digital platform. In addition to monitoring the fulfillment of government programs it will poll the population to find out how well various measures and projects are implemented. The digital platform will become fully functional in 2023,” he said.
