Lukashenko: inspection authorities’ efforts should be aimed at improving enterprises’ performance
The efforts of the inspection authorities should be aimed at improving the performance of enterprises – as stated by President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko at a meeting focusing on control and supervisory activities. The draft decree On Amending the Decrees of the President of the Republic of Belarus (issues of control (supervisory) activities) has been submitted for the Head of State’s consideration.
The President stated that, amid improving statistical indicators, negative trends are still not eliminated in control and supervisory activities, “In particular, full-fledged inspections are sometimes conducted under the guise of preventive forms of control – various kinds of monitoring and technical inspections. In total, about 300,000 such events are held annually – an impressive figure. Only after I pointed out the inadmissibility of such an approach, their numbers dropped by about half.”
Unfortunately, the Belarusian leader added, the practice of multiple visits to the same enterprise on identical issues has not stopped, “Inspectors, coming one after another, require to submit a huge amount of documentation, i.e., they are actually engaged in bureaucratic fuss and nit-picking.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko cited an example: during the grain harvesting period (July-August 2022), inspectors visited the Osnezhetskoye agricultural enterprise 49 times!
“Entries in the audit book were made only twice. It’s incredible for me,” the President responded. “Unfortunately, such examples are not isolated. The most outrageous thing is that sometimes inspectors check not the organisations that should have been checked. There is no other way to explain the cases when I need to personally intervene to restore order, as was the case with pricing. The efforts of inspectors are often aimed particularly at finding flaws and applying penalties. Though their efforts should be primarily aimed at improving the performance of enterprises. We do not need fines and punishments and some kind of sanctions, we need improvements in the work of enterprises.”
In this regard, the President instructed to take a closer look at the situation, change the style and methods of work.
In pursuance of this instruction, the Government has prepared a draft decree on improving control and supervisory activities – developed by it for over two years. According to the Head of State, the President Administration and the Council of Ministers ‘updated it several times’, involving all interested departments.
“As a result, the draft contains a range of innovations: from shifting the focus in the regulatory authorities’ work towards prevention to removing the prosecutor’s office from the scope of Decree No. 510. Due to the importance of this legal act for the country, the final decision will be made by me only after our comprehensive discussion,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
In this regard, he asked the participants of the meeting whether our enterprises will be able to work more efficiently after signing this document and whether they will receive the long-awaited reduction in the inspection load? Won’t the controls be loosened?
“I’m now referring to those areas where there is a real risk of harm to national security, life and health of citizens,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The Head of State also asked whether all problematic issues are settled by this decree and what the Interdepartmental Council for Control and Supervisory Activities thinks about it.
