Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the YABLOKO faction in St.Petersburg Legislative Assembly, commented on the Governor’s decision to deprive a number of city officials of their bonuses for poor implementation of the budget for 2012.

«Implementation of the budget lies in the direct responsibilities of the Government of St. Petersburg. Year after year, we have observed non-implementation of the law [on the budget]. The authorities regularly proclaim that the budget is ‘socially oriented’, however also regularly do not implement the key items of the budget: do not build social facilities such as schools, kindergartens and hospitals, they do not to build roads and other infrastructure facilities. St.Petersburg dwellers pay taxes, and the government in exchange for this promises them mountains of gold, however, in the last minute the government reports that citizens will not receive even what has been planned. The residents of the city quite correctly perceive this as a deceit and their trust to the government drops,» Yavlinsky said.

Yavlinsky noted that it was good the city government had finally paid attention to the problem of non-implementation of the budget. “YABLOKO has been regularly raising the issues of the government’s failure to implement its key task… [Now they have reacted.] But it is most important what measures will be taken so that such a situation does not happen again next year,” he said.

“An urgent, radical and qualitative change in the system is needed. We need a true and modern approach to the control over budget. And this is the task of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg.»

Earlier it was reported that Governor of St.Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko had deprived almost all of Deputy Governors of their bonuses due to non-implementation of the city budget. Poltavchenko noted that he had adopted such measures as the expenditures on some items were implemented only by 70-80 per cent.