Ales Makaeu: Belarus should adopt common strategy for entrepreneurs

photo by svaboda.org

While individual entrepreneurs at the Eurasian area are working in unequal conditions, official Minsk is basically forcing them to cheat.

Once again individual entrepreneurs are struggling to survive. On July 1 new rules for individual entrepreneurs’ work were enacted: mandatory certification of goods from the Customs Union, and President Decree No.222, which provides for the presence of attending forms for all goods.

Entrepreneurs in many Belarus’ regions stopped paying taxes and stopped working. However, shopping centers in Minsk didn’t stop their work, which gave grounds to accusations about betrayal by Minsk of regions, voiced by Iryna Jaskevich, the leader of Vitebsk entrepreneurs.

- Did Minsk actually betray the regions? Why Minsk entrepreneurs look like strikebreakers in comparison with the regions? What should entrepreneurs do to survive in future?

Ales Makaeu, the head of the Coordination Council of Minsk entrepreneurs, answered the questions of EuroBelarus Information Service.

- How is situation developing in Minsk after the President Decree No.222 came into force on July 1?

- The work across the country stopped, entrepreneurs didn’t pay taxes, markets stopped working. In Minsk the situation is the opposite: entrepreneurs paid the tax and all markets are working.

Entrepreneurs in Minsk laid too much hopes for the Forum for entrepreneurs, which took place on June 30, the last day for paying taxes and submitting declarations on taxes. The vast majority of entrepreneurs have paid taxes and submitted declarations until that date; the Forum just happened too late.

On the whole, we have a lot of questions to the organizers of the Forum. Why did they ignore the issue of entrepreneurs’ solidarity across the country? Why wasn’t common strategy for entrepreneurs discussed at the Forum?

Councils of entrepreneurs at markets, which were formed by Lukashenka after 2008, could take upon themselves a mission of entrepreneurs’ self-organization; they are not subject to the Ministry of Justice. Unfortunately, there were no meetings of entrepreneurs, because working places are life-and-death issues for individual entrepreneurs.

Active membership of entrepreneurs at markets should have worked out; but it didn’t.

Hrodna, Homel, Vitebsk, Svetlagorsk, Mahilieu, and Baranovichi are on strike, but in Minsk individual entrepreneurs didn’t manage to organize themselves; they didn’t have enough solidarity.

Goods are not confiscated at the border. It happens thanks to the strikes of individual entrepreneurs in the regions. As just a day before Lukashenka compared non-payment of taxes with treason. The authorities are checking the situation, and Lukashenka is, definitely, aware of what is going on.

- What does President Decree No.222 mean for individual entrepreneurs?

- Individual entrepreneurs at the Eurasian area are working in unequal conditions, basically on a level with legal entities. We cannot interpret demand to certificate goods otherwise. Legislation of Customs Union stipulates that working conditions for business entities can’t be worsened; but working conditions in Belarus got worse. And that means that we can appeal directly to Putin or Nazarbaev to clarify why producers of goods and wholesalers don’t have the documents, which are required from Belarusan entrepreneurs. The authorities are, basically, forcing Belarusan individual entrepreneurs to engage in fraud and look for documents, which don’t even exist.

Perhaps, it is the biggest attack on the individual entrepreneurs over the last years.

It is thanks to the individual entrepreneurs there is no shortage of goods, and if we, individual entrepreneurs, are defeated, prices will get higher, and Soviet Union’s shortage of goods can come back.

- Why Minsk didn’t stop working?

- Individual entrepreneurs there have already paid the taxes. We need common strategy for entrepreneurs, and Minsk will find its place in it. It is almost impossible to repeal President Decree in our country; I can only recollect one such a case. When alone, nothing can be done.