Vassily Zatsepin: New Principles of Budget Planning Have Resulted in Deterioration of its Quality

On June 1, Vassily Zatsepin, Head of the Economics of the Military-Industrial Sector Department took part as a speaker and participant in the conference  of the International Forum of Economists in Amsterdam (May 30– June 2).

V. Zatsepin delivered a report:  Laws, Secrecy and Statistics: The Latest Developments in Budgeting of Russian Defense Expenditures. The speaker noted in particular that in the past few years the Russian budget system switched over to the principles of mid-term  planning (for the period of three years starting from 2008) and program planning (from 2014). However, introduction of those innovation instruments resulted in a situation wh ere achievements of the previous period were abandoned and federal budget expenditures became less transparent and more classified.

The above factors reduced dramatically the quality of budget planning, including that of defense expenditures.  Paradoxically,  the government with its long-term experience in development of the state armament program failed to prepare timely the 31^st state program – Ensuring of the Defense Capacity of the Country – for the 2014-2016 Federal Budget. The main obstacle to upgrading the efficiency of budgeting of Russian defense expenditures is illegal classification of those expenditures due to wrong interpretation by government agencies of the Law on State Secret.

Презентация к докладу >>>