Penza, 18 November 2014. PenzaNews. Georgy Kamnev, member of the Legislative Assembly of the Penza region, the first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party, was the only politician who refused to support the first draft of the regional budget in 2015 and the planning period of 2016-2017. In an interview to PenzaNews agency, he describe his stance on the main financial document of the region.

© PenzaNewsBuy the photo

“We will cut the budget by 8 billion rubles. They are mostly related to social field, which means social programs will be cut, and both welfare and education expenses will be reduced. Of course we may not endorse such stance,” Georgy Kamnev stated.

He also argued that the new three-year Penza region budget is not socially oriented.

“To be more clear, it is wage-oriented – that is, it is designed to pay wages to state workers,” the agency interlocutor noted.

In his opinion, the budget would be socially oriented if development of advanced welfare and education strategies were among the expenses.

“People would have seen we are pushing the field forward, we are doing something. But in this case, it is dedicated to paying out the wages,” explained the Communist party activist.

Georgy Kamnev also suggested that net gain in the budget was artificially induced, explaining this with the potential of the Russian Ministry of Finance to provide low-interest loans to replace services provided to the Penza region by commercial institutions.

“If you compare the practices and the budget policy of our region and some other foreign countries, you see the budget is also formed with net loss so that it would be possible to see where to push,” explained the deputy of the Legislative Assembly.