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Ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin opens Internet portal Open Budget

The main aim of the project is to familiarize ordinary citizens with the budgets of all levels in a simple form easy to understand

MOSCOW, December 5 (Itar-Tass) — Ex-finance minister Alexei Kudrin, who heads a Committee on Civilian Initiatives, has presented his new project on Wednesday – an Internet portal called the Open Budget. Kudrin said the new project is one of the projects of priority importance as was announced in the first declaration on the Committee establishment.

The main aim of the project is to familiarize ordinary citizens with the budgets of all levels in a simple form easy to understand for laymen, he said. The website should promote public control over budgetary expenditures and in perspective, create" a model for amending budgets," Kudrin said.

The authors of the new web portal did their best to create a system which enables users to appraise budgetary expenditures and their effectiveness. Users can even find a polyclinic which provides them medical services to see whether plans envisaged in the budget have been fulfilled, for instance, if their polyclinic was repaired, said Director of the Open Budget program Alexei Popov.

Alexei Kudrin said that several regions, including the Amur, Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kirov regions, Komi and seventeen municipal territories, take part in the Open Budget program on a voluntary basis. "As a former finance minister I am interested to look at the budgetary process as an ordinary citizen and information user. I think it is useful for every finance minister," Kudrin said.