MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax-AVN) - President Vladimir Putin has stated that the federal government and regional authorities are not fully implementing the law on the replacement of social benefits with cash payments.
"The government and the regions have not fully accomplished the task we were talking about: while making decisions we must not worsen the position of those in need of state aid," Putin told the Cabinet on Monday.
"The government has failed to carry out an in-depth analysis of these problems. Meanwhile, solutions exist and are to be found in the law and in the principles of the reform, when the law is enforced and the principle of social justice is preserved," Putin said.
Putin spoke at length about the history of social benefits in Russia.
"The system of social benefits existed in the former Soviet Union and was implemented rather effectively. Labor and war veterans and disabled people - a small group compared to the entire population - were also entitled to such benefits," the Russian president said.
"After the Soviet Union fell apart, serious economic and social problems arose. Their scope is well known. Concurrently, the number of citizens entitled to social benefits increased considerably. Thus the state was trying to hide its economic and social ineptitude. The government would declare social benefits and fail to fulfill them, or would fulfill them partially," Putin said.
"Today, the government should have been prepared to deal with attacks from the left-wing and right-wing parties which, on the one hand, were creating an oligarchic system, conniving at a large-scale plunder of the national wealth and, on the other, making absolutely infeasible decisions, or facilitating such decisions," said Putin.
As a result, over 50% of the country's citizens found themselves in the category of beneficiaries. "This means that less than half of the population were to carry the burden of financing free transport services in large cities," he said.
"Of course, this worried those who paid and, on the other hand, led to the transport's wear, high tariffs and low quality of services, which angered everyone," he said.
"The current situation differs from the 1990s, when wages and pensions were not paid for years. But even now many citizens are in need of state support," the Russian president said.