The state debt of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation increased by 5.2% from 2017 to the beginning of 2022 and amounted to 2.5 trillion rubles, TASS reports citing the report of the Accounts Chamber.
As noted in the document, the bulk of borrowings came in 2020. Among the regions examined, the largest increase in debt was noted in St. Petersburg – by 6.2 times, the Moscow Region – by 2.7 times and the Sverdlovsk Region – by 37.8%. In the Novgorod region, the republics of Tatarstan and Sakha (Yakutia), the increase in debt ranged from 1.5 to 11.1%. At the same time, public debt in the Irkutsk region decreased by 24%, auditors note.
According to the authors of the report, in 2017–2021, the inspected regions received loans from the federal budget in the amount of more than 896 billion rubles. The regions were granted treasury loans (to replenish the balance of funds in the budget account) in the amount of 2.2 trillion rubles.
According to the results of the audit, the regions mainly used the provided loans to pay off debt obligations (more than 50%) and pay current expenses (more than 47%). At the same time, the share of budget loans allocated for investment purposes was extremely insignificant.
Violations were also identified, in particular, the practice of attracting market loans in the presence of significant balances in the accounts of regional budgets. As a result, such borrowings led to unreasonable expenses for their maintenance. The total amount of interest payments in such cases only in the Moscow region and St. Petersburg amounted to about 5 billion rubles.
Source: Rosbalt
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