By Vestnik Kavkaza
To overcome the crisis in the Russian economy, it is necessary to raise the quality of public administration and management in state-run corporations, the chief executive of Russia's Sberbank, Hermann Gräf, said at the investment forum "Russia Is Calling".
"Today we are importing almost everything. When we say that the exchange rate of rouble went down, and stop the import, I shudder, because everyone thinks about it. I think about how I should build a high-tech company, and I'm completely dependent on imported products. I already can not live without the benefits of civilization. Today, I can survive without Internet banking, I do not want to stand in a queue in the old Soviet Sberbank for two hours until I'm served by a girl. I do not want to stand in a queue in a Soviet shop," Gräf said.
In this regard, he urged to raise the quality control: "We have unimaginable social costs in the area of public administration. If we calculate the cost per unit of effectiveness, they will be huge. And this giant mill of inefficiency will never produce flour, not matter how much grain is being sent to it".
According to Gräf, "we have 5 trillion rubles to be spent on the federal targeted programmes. But let's ask openly what these federal targeted programmes have achieved in the last 5 years. This is the key issue. If this mechanism worked like a clock , I would be ready to pay more taxes and give something back to the community. But onbly if my money were transformed into something effective for our society. The problem is that no one believes that there will be created something effective. This is the basic problem. Let's talk about it. We have to replace the mechanism of governmental control and make it more compact, more efficient."
"How do we make an effective mechanism in state-owned companies? If there is no way to do this, then let them be privatized!" Gräf said. "How do we make private companies to be more efficient? The answer is obvious - the fierce competition. We do not have enough competition, in fact the half of the economy is monopolized, and hence there will be no efficiency. The rouble has bounced to 39.5. It will rebound, but prices will not rebound. We do not believe that prices will bounce. Why? Yes, because there is no competition, nothing will force prices to return back. Today, among our most popular applications are not those to open a new business or forr registration of the company, but an application to emigrate. We all know that. We have to address this issue. If we do not fix this environment, nothing will work. This is the key issue."
"How much time we spent with these special economic zones. For five years as the minister I have fought for the creation of special economic zones," Gräf said. "The zones are created, but there are no benefits. Such zones are not something that is enclosed by a fence. Let's make these areas more attractive to the people so that they want to come and work there, but first one need to create the conditions, proper administration and taxation. We all need to stop talking about structural reforms as a kind of abstraction. We need to fix the very foundation of the economic system. Without improving this foundation, the quality of the public administration in the country. Without it, nothing more will happen."
