SOCIAL JUSTICE FROM KINDERGARTEN TO RETIREMENT

It is not the first year that Azerbaijan has proclaimed the social orientation of its economic policy. However, since the beginning of this year, amid growing foreign exchange reserves and the diminishing impact of the crisis on the global economy, the measures taken have become even more widespread and directed. It seems that the state's purpose is to finally send many serious problems concerning social injustice to the archives. At a cabinet meeting dedicated to the results of socioeconomic development in the first quarter of 2011, President Ilham Aliyev gave specific instructions on some very important issues.

As already mentioned, Azerbaijan's growing financial potential allows the state and the government to deal with problems whose solutions require considerable resources. It must be noted that in the first three months of 2011, the country's accumulated foreign exchange reserves reached $34.2 billion, a figure that rises every day.

Especially as the president said, this decline is temporary in nature. "Oil production in Azerbaijan has now reached, we can say, a high point and will remain at that level. “With regard to the production of gas, our gas production must grow in subsequent years by way of investment", he said. In any case, stable economic growth (1.6 per cent) in the country has been secured, because the non-oil sector is gaining momentum and has grown by 5.6 per cent. And this is not the limit.

The first objective set by the head of state for the government was to enhance the fight against monopolies. "We are keen to develop small and medium-sized businesses; to have big companies and strengthen them, but at the same time, a large company willy-nilly becomes a monopoly and sometimes takes inappropriate steps in its own interests", Aliyev said.

Task number two, following on from the first, is to strengthen the fight against corruption and bribery. And, according to the president, this struggle must be broad and multifaceted, and administrative action, penalties and public control should be strengthened.

Another social imperative is to reduce the level of unemployment, for which the president ordered that the domestic labour force be protected amid the increasing number of labour migrants in Azerbaijan. "Despite the fact that nearly a million jobs have been created in Azerbaijan in recent years, and most of them are permanent, unemployment still exists. We must make sure that citizens of Azerbaijan have jobs in the first place", he said.  

Traditionally, guidance from the head of state mentions infrastructural issues. At the last meeting, Aliyev also ordered the reconstruction of all schools in bad repair, the building of new kindergartens and repair of rural and urban roads.

It should be noted here that, to a certain extent, kindergartens are new to this list. Much has been said and written about the fact that most of them ceased to exist after privatization and the country suffered an apparent lack of preschool education institutions offering care and education for children from 3 to 6 years at affordable rates, while the number of nurseries for 1-2-year-old children can be counted on the fingers. But the government was apparently undecided on how to resolve this issue. The only reasonable proposal came from the head of state: "I do not think we should review the results of privatization. Since everyone knows that Azerbaijan is a country that is true to its word, and investments - both external and internal - are protected by the state. So the only way forward for us is to identify sites so that we can begin the widespread construction of kindergartens. This issue must be solved with additions to the budget. In this and subsequent years, a programme for the construction of kindergartens should be undertaken." 

Nor did the president forget the senior members of our society - the decree to increase pensions for citizens who retired before 2006 has been expected for a long time. The president noted that in this area there is a certain injustice: new rules have been applied since 2006 and those who retired after their introduction receive larger pensions.

There are about 1.3 million pensioners in the country. 900,000 of them retired before 2006. According to Salim Muslimov, chairman of the State Social Security Fund of Azerbaijan, the average monthly retirement pension was 114 manats by the end of the first quarter of 2011, which was 14 per cent more than in the same period last year.

As you can see, the president's social instructions cover almost all age categories of the Azerbaijani population, recommending, inter alia, a rise in salaries and social payments financed from the budget in the expected revision of the budget parameters for this year.

Along with the huge positive impact of all these decisions on welfare and general attitudes in society, there are certain concerns about the negative impact of the release of more money on consumer prices on the market. In any case, the head of state also expressed his concern about the 9.1 per-cent increase in inflation in Azerbaijan over the first quarter. "Both global developments - oil price hikes - and the expected rise in wages and pensions in the country will have an impact on inflationary risks. We should make sure that inflation remains single-digit in 2011 and that all anti-inflationary measures are implemented more actively and purposefully", Aliyev said.

Thus, the head of state once again outlined the main objective set for the government: to achieve a real increase in the welfare of the most socially disadvantaged groups and to eliminate poverty, especially as the government has every resource to fulfil its tasks.