Business news

MINSK, 21 April (BelTA) – State oversight and the responsibility of private businesses for their work must stay in place. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the relevant statement in his address to the nation and the parliament on 21 April, BelTA has learned.

The head of state said: “In other words, state control and the responsibility of private businesses for their work must stay in place. I am told that many representatives of government agencies and the private sector have argued against the responsibility enforcement measures I’ve just mentioned. We will make everyone responsible — government agencies and private companies to the max. The president and members of the parliament bear the ultimate task of control and responsibility enforcement because people elected us and they have the right to demand results.”

Alexander Lukashenko reminded that excessive load will be lifted from private Belarusian companies. “We will ease up regulations but private companies will still have their responsibility. I’ve been getting reports that they don’t like it very much. They say that while the government takes strides and discusses these problems, it shifts a lot of responsibility onto private companies — responsibility for the workforce, for the enterprise, for the work they do while private business owners don’t like that. Well, my dears, whether you like it or not, if you intend to do business here, you will bear responsibility primarily for your people,” he stated.

The president said that he gets reports about shady business practices. “What I am getting is but the tip of the iceberg. I can promise that those, who hide their money, smuggle their money abroad without paying taxes to the state budget, those, who cheat people, will get no quarter. There was a mass media report from Vitebsk Oblast a short while ago. A new house was built. People moved in while the walls started cracking. The person responsible for it responded by saying that the residents use the house in wrong ways. They shouldn’t have pasted wallpapers and shouldn’t have placed their furniture close to the walls. Instead they should have allowed draught to air the rooms. Are you nuts? Here is a perfect example where state oversight is necessary and where errors must be fixed!” stressed Alexander Lukashenko.

The package of documents prepared by the working group on encouraging business initiatives and ruling out excessive requirements for private companies in addition to further improving state oversight functions will have to prune all the unnecessary things. “I will get the documents pretty soon. I can promise we will discuss the final documents in public. Once the work is done, the documents will be analyzed in detail. I’d like to know how responsibly the people in charge have acted upon my instructions,” he concluded.

The president said that one side is now represented by sanitary inspectors, fire safety inspectors, and other kinds of auditors, who have to keep only the kinds of inspections that are really necessary, while the other side is represented by private businesses and all the people willing to work in the private sector. “Balance things out! There is no other way around it,” said the head of state.