PRESS: Russian min offers less parliament role in budget spending

MOSCOW, May 13 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Finance Ministry has prepared amendments to the Budget Code that will allow it to distribute extra subsidies and replace foreign market borrowings with domestic ones without a compulsory approval by the parliament, business daily Kommersant reported Friday, citing data of the ministry.

The government earlier decided against its traditional spring budget revision and postponed problematic issues, such as pension adjustment to inflation, financing of measures against the economic crisis and large-scale privatization, until elections to the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, on September 18.

The newly elected State Duma will become functional only in November but the deputies will have to revise both the 2016 amended budget and the 2017–2019 plan, Kommersant reported.

The ministry also proposed extending a 90% charge on the central bank’s net profit for one year and to allocate investment yields of the Reserve Fund and the National Wealth Fund in current spending rather than savings until February 1, 2020.

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