The authorities plan to start monitoring the construction of facilities with budget funding from 2024

The government intends to introduce a system for monitoring the construction of objects with budget financing from 2024 – the Ministry of Construction has prepared a project providing for its creation on the basis of the Electronic Budget system. The bottom line is to track the achievement of control points, from obtaining the conclusion of the state expertise and ending with the registration of rights to the object, in real time to identify the risks of delaying construction. Market participants support the initiative, noting that it will help in the fight against “incomplete”.

For budget construction projects, it is planned to introduce a new real-time monitoring system – the Ministry of Construction has developed a draft resolution that includes such a procedure in the implementation of the Federal Targeted Investment Program (FAIP), monitoring will be organized in the Electronic Budget system and will begin in 2024. The deadlines for reaching the control points will be immersed in the system – the regions will provide information on their actual performance. Adjustment of the terms is prohibited, with the exception of two cases: when changing the profile state programs and when reducing subsidies to the region for co-financing construction.

The initiative fits into the overall restructuring of public investment management, launched in 2020 due to criticism of the FTIP due to the slow development of budget funds and the appearance of “unfinished construction”. After that, the government made FTIP more flexible, allowing the “transfer” of funds between objects, and began to build a clear vertical of control. So, in 2021, a “Single Customer in the Construction Industry” was created to complete problematic facilities, in 2022 the Ministry of Construction was transferred the powers of the Ministry of Economy to form FTIP (see “Kommersant” dated April 18, 2022), and the government approved a plan for a “new approach “to combat unfinished projects (see “Kommersant” dated April 5, 2022).

The project was developed by the Ministry of Construction in pursuance of the “road map” approved by two Deputy Prime Ministers – Marat Khusnullin, who is responsible for construction, and Dmitry Grigorenko, head of the government apparatus. The latter’s office explained that the “map” improves the system for monitoring the implementation of national projects and state programs – now it is an automated management system based “on measurable data, not expert assessments, that is, the digital system reflects actual data on the timing and results achieved, as well as the risks of rejection.” The office of Marat Khusnullin explained to Kommersant that the preparation of regulations and information and technical support for monitoring state construction projects is underway, as well as “testing is being carried out in a pilot mode.” The system, they add, will allow receiving real-time information about the stage of construction at which it is, identifying risks at each stage in order to “be able to make management decisions in a timely manner – for example, if there is a delay in the construction of one object, financing can be directed to an accelerated implementation of others. Nine mandatory checkpoints have been selected for monitoring, from obtaining a state expert examination report and a construction permit to commissioning an object and registering rights to it.

Participants of the construction market support the initiative. As Ilya Ponomarev, General Director of Yuginvestproekt JSC, notes, the sphere of capital investments requires special control – “the establishment of key points for each project and the formation of a response procedure will become an important part of ensuring the efficiency of the budget process.” According to the president of NOSTROY Anton Glushkov, the monitoring will have “an exceptionally positive impact”, as it will allow timely prevention of failures in the implementation of FTIP. According to Rifat Garipov, the head of the commission for project financing of the public council under the Ministry of Construction, monitoring is an important condition for completing projects on time and preventing the appearance of “incomplete” – “the system allows for the transparency of construction processes,” and a ban on adjusting the deadlines for reaching control points will strengthen control over the progress construction sites

Evgenia Kryuchkova, Oleg Sapozhkov