The main issue of the session was the consideration of the draft Decree of the Supreme State Council of the Union State “On the budget of the Union State for 2020” and the report of the Union State Council of Ministers on budget execution for 2018.
In November 2019, the Committee of State Control of Belarus and the Accounts Chamber of Russia prepared a conclusion on the draft budget of the Union State for 2020. Aleksandr Kurlypo informed the participants of the Parliamentary Assembly about the results of held analysis. At the same time, he noted a number of problematic issues to which the SAIs of two countries drew attention.
Thus, the amount of non-tax revenues forecasted for 2020 decreased by 3.7 times (compared to 2019) due to a decrease in the balances of the Union State budgets of previous years. Such dynamics, taking into account the trend of steadily declining real budget revenues of the Union State, according to A. Kurlypo, may lead to the fact that by 2021 there may be a risk of insufficient funds to finance all the planned programs, projects and activities of the Union State.
At the same time, the Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Belarus drew the attention of the Parliamentary Assembly deputies that so far no mechanisms have been developed to receive budget revenues from the use of property created or acquired at the expense of the Union State budget. The SAIs of Belarus and Russia have been spoke about this problem for several years, but it has not yet been resolved.
As for the budget expenditures, in its structure 86.6% (4.7 billion rubles) are envisaged to financing of 11 programs, 2 projects and 25 activities of the Union State, with the largest share (61%) of implementation costs 11 union programs (3.3 billion rubles).
On November 20, 2019, representatives of the State Control Committee of Belarus took part in a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly Commission on Budget and Finance. Pavel Pinchuk, Head of the Main Department for Control of Budgetary and Financial Sphere presented the information on the results of control over the execution of the Union State budget for 2018 and reviewing the draft Union State budget for 2020.