Putin presents Cabinet’s annual performance report to the parliament
MOSCOW, Russia - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in line with one of the last amendments to the Constitution obligating the premier to annually update the parliamentarians on the government’s activities, presented his maiden Cabinet performance report to the State Duma, where he focused on the economic crisis, the measures already taken by the government and those in pipeline to lift Russia out of the current global crisis a ‘stronger and more diversified economy’ ready to meet the new challenges of the post-crisis era with the world’s other largest economies.
Characterizing the dire economic situation in the country, which he called a ‘reflection of the unprecedented downturn’ in the global economy being currently battered by the ongoing financial crunch, Putin said his government had already poured over 1.4trln.rubs directly from the federal budget into the Russian economy, but along with generous funding from other government sources such as the Central Bank, National Welfare Fund and lowering of taxes for both corporations and individuals, the gross total sum of the state financial interventions to mitigate the market downturn and spur recovery of the domestic economy now stands at staggering 3trln.rubs.
Putin said the government's anticrisis actions have produced tangible results. “The government's anticrisis measures have helped prevent the total collapse of the national banking system, which was on the brink of defaulting on its obligations,” he noted. “The government helped the banks so as to protect the citizens’ savings and prevent the then-looming paralysis of companies’ accounts. These two tasks have been successfully executed.” Putin also spoke on other key issues, such as tax reforms, including the provisions for tax reliefs across a broad spectrum of taxable issues, pension reform, plans and programs to bail out of companies suffering from the global economic crisis, etc.
However, unlike in more developed democracies, where prime ministers in such situations usually come under a barrage of sticking questions, Putin was saved from such ordeal as the questions he was to answer after his presentation were ‘doctored,’ having been previously agreed upon by United Russia, the pro-Kremlin majority party in the State Duma, and its key ally the Just Party, which had filtered all the questions deemed ‘hostile’ to the prime minister from the finally approved list.
This also probably explained why the State Duma’s reactions to the report were divided along the party lines. Thus, while United Russia and Just Russia parties hailed the prime minister’s performance as ‘near perfect,’ other parties such as the LDPR called the report “surreal, being far from realities,” while the main opposition communist party, KPRF, completely down rated the entire report, with the party chairman, Gennady Zyuganov, calling Putin’s declared programs “an attempt to remedy a very bad situation” in the country in general and its economy in particular.
It seems that Zyuganov was particuarly most irked by the fiscal, monetary policies and other anticrisis strategies being executed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kudrin, who also doubles as the nation's finance minister, calling them a sure road to compete failure and national jeopardy. “Putin's proposals are a desire to improve the current bad situation, but with his present Cabinet team, and especially with Kudrin still kept at the helms of the nation’s Finance Ministry, the declared programs are not realizable,” he said. “The only good aspect of the prime minister's historic appearance today in the State Duma is that he was here to hear that Kudrin’s fiscal and monetary policies and other anticrisis strategies will put the whole country on a direct route to bankruptcy, joblessness and default.”
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