One of the main goals for 2020 will be to maintain real income levels, Belarus Prime Minister Sergei Rumas said at a session of the Council of Ministers to discuss social and economic development on 11 February, BelTA has learned.

“Our priority goals include maintaining real income levels and increasing salaries for low-paid workers,” the prime minister noted. In Q1 2020 employers paying salaries considerably below the normal level must achieve the salary of Br500. Sergei Rumas stressed that this task will be a personal responsibility of local officials.

At the same time the prime minister pointed out that the main condition remains unchanged: a salary must be earned.

The session focused on performance discipline. According to Sergei Rumas, timely and proper implementation of the president's and government's instructions and efficient cooperation in their fulfillment is still lacking.

“We have analyzed reports on the implementation of instructions of the prime minister, the Council of Ministers and its Presidium. As a result we saw that almost a fifth of the instructions missed the deadline,” Sergei Rumas said. The Housing and Utilities Ministry, the Minsk City Hall, and the Gomel City Hall performed particularly poorly in this regard. Sergei Rumas gave the deputy prime ministers two days to look into the performance discipline in areas they oversee and submit proposals for bringing disciplinary action against the ones responsible for drawbacks. Governors received similar instructions.

Another important matter in focus of the session was finishing the investment projects in 2020 with the help of directed loans. “No one will be allowed to carry unutilized loans over into 2021,” the prime minister stressed.

Last year, 99.6% of directed loans were put to use, Sergei Rumas said. “However, to achieve such a good result the amount of lending had to be revised eleven times,” Sergei Rumas noted. Plans are in place to discuss this matter in detail at the final session of the Council of Ministers. “This is why I will ask the economy minister to report about the reasons behind these revisions (sometimes made in a rush) and who did not use the loans,” the prime minister added.