The Federal Treasury is planning to boost spending on government investment this month because it still has to spend as much as a quarter of its annual budget allocation before the end of the year, a Cabinet official said Wednesday.
The move represents one of the last-minute disbursements that will push the budget deficit to its projected 6.9 percent of gross domestic product from the more modest levels earlier this year.
As of Dec. 1, the treasury spent just 73 percent of the 840.6 billion rubles ($27.8 billion) that was set aside for investment under 51 various federal programs such as upgrading roads and developing aerospace technology, the official said.
One of the programs, which aims to modernize the country’s transportation system, funded the bridge across the Volga that President Dmitry Medvedev opened in Ulyanovsk last month.
Spending on federal programs will reach close to 100 percent by the end of the year, the official said at a news conference ahead of a Cabinet meeting that will take up the issue Thursday.
As of Dec. 1 last year, the treasury had spent an even smaller portion, 64 percent, he said on condition of anonymity, which is the policy for such news conferences.
“The situation is better this year,” he said.
Federal programs account for roughly 10 percent of all budget outlays. Traditionally, government agencies spend a disproportionately large amount of this money in the last few weeks of the year.
One of the worst-funded programs so far this year is the federal program Electronic Russia that aims to increase the number of government services provided online, the official said. It received 22 percent of this year’s total as of Dec. 1, he said, attributing some of the delay to a revision in the program ordered by Medvedev.
The Cabinet will also discuss the policy of setting prices for the government-controlled monopolies in 2009-2011, another Cabinet official said at the same news conference.
The policy would require such companies to disclose their financial reports and detail their investment plans, he said.
The monopolies include Russian Railways, the operator of the world’s longest train network, and Gazprom, the world’s largest gas producer.
The policy would also allow private companies that use pipelines and grids to construct them to specifications issued by the federal monopolies, instead of waiting for the monopolies to do the work, which is the current practice, the official said.
“They may do something in a more timely manner and, maybe, cheaper sometimes,” he said.
The Cabinet is drafting decrees to implement these measures, he said without giving specific deadlines for the decrees.