The Committee on Economic Policy, Budget and Finance considered the law-in-draft on the budget for 2024 in preparation for adoption in the first reading. The main parameters and directions were announced by Minister of Finance Alena Ruskevich. Traditionally, the 2024 budget will be socially oriented. The trend of financing primarily socially protected expenses continues. We are talking about wages, pensions, benefits and financial assistance.
Consolidated budget revenues for the next year are projected in the amount of 3 billion 770 thousand rubles, which is 4.22% less than the planned indicators for 2023. The decrease in budget revenues is projected at 2.65%, which is about 93 million rubles.
The share of socially protected items makes up the largest part – more than 62% in the expenditure side of the republican budget for 2024. It is planned to increase the expenditures of the republican budget on the payment of pensions and benefits due to the increase in the number of recipients, as well as compensation to pensioners in the form of a monthly difference in pensions, to meet the need for prostheses. Despite the overall reduction in budget expenditures, presented by the Government of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic the law-in-draft provides for social support measures. 57 million rubles are planned to pay for benefits for utilities and communication services, 49 million rubles for state target programs in the field of health care and social protection, 40 million rubles for the maintenance of orphanages and boarding schools, and to maintain the current procedure for payments under Soviet deposits to citizens (phased indexation of deposits of the population) – about 25.5 million rubles, more than 15 million rubles for the purchase of housing for orphans, about 38 million rubles for treatment of citizens outside Pridnestrovie.
As for expenditures on targeted budget funds and development programs, the functioning will remain despite the reduction in income. The Capital Investment Fund, the Entrepreneurship Development Fund, the Youth Support Fund, the Road Fund, the Agricultural Support Fund, and the Land Reclamation Complex Development Fund will continue their work in 2024. However, their funding as a whole will decrease by 7%, the Minister of Finance noted, presenting the draft law on the 2024 budget at a meeting of the Committee on Economic Policy, Budget and Finance.
As for the Capital Investment Fund, the main priority for capital investments will remain healthcare and education facilities of the republic, the minister added. The state will continue to subsidize part of the interest rates on preferential loans provided to organizations in priority industries within the framework of the Entrepreneurship Development Fund. The draft budget provides funds for state support for young families and for the purchase of housing for young families from the Youth Support Fund.
The draft budget of the Unified State Social Insurance Fund for 2024was included to the agenda of today’s Committee. As noted by the director of the Unified State Social Insurance Fund Alevtina Bereza, the main task of spending the Fund’s budget in 2024 is the timely payment of pensions, benefits and compensation, as before. All payments that are available in the republic in 2023 are provided for in the new budget of the Unified State Social Insurance Fund.
The draft budget law 2024 will be considered in the course of the plenary meeting next Wednesday, November 15. Parliamentarians will have to adopt it in the first reading.