16.11.2017

The Committee of the Russian State Duma for Budget and Taxes approved amendments to the budget, prepared by representatives of the All-Russian People’s Front.

The All-Russian People’s Front (ONF) suggested to increase the financial support for non-commercial organisations to 8 billion roubles. Moreover, the ONF insisted on increasing the support for socially oriented NGOs to 600 million roubles. The ONF’s proposal was supported by the State Duma Committee for Budget and Taxes.

“Socially oriented non-commercial organisations are not at all a line in a budget that you can painlessly economise on. They cover a sphere where the state acts less effectively”, the deputy head of the State Duma, co-chairperson of the central staff of the ONF, Olga Timofeeva, announced.

The coordinator of legislative initiatives of the ONF in the State Duma, Deputy Natalia Kostenko, emphasised that such questions, such as helping the elderly and people with disabilities, supporting families and children, needs to be more widely entrusted to civil society and non-commercial organisations, which often work more effectively, with a higher quality and with an honest concern for people. “That is why we hope that the amendment approved by the committee will be adopted in the State Duma, and financial support for NGOs will be kept at the necessary level”, she announced.

Earlier the Duma Committee for the Development of Civil Society, Issues of Social and Religious Communities and the leader of the Presidential Grants Fund came out against cuts to state support for the non-commercial sector which the draft federal budget proposed. In the draft, a decrease of 43% in funding for those in the programme “Increasing the effectiveness of state support for socially oriented non-commercial organisations” in comparison to 2017 and a cut of 41.5% to the amount of presidential grants given to non-commercial organisations.

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2017/11/16/gosduma-podderzhka-nko/