Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin dismissed Maxim Topilin from the post of head of the Russian Pension Fund (PFR).

Andrey Kigim has been appointed the new head of the PFR.

“Andrey Kigim previously headed the Social Insurance Fund (FSS) of the Russian Federation.

In this position, he worked for almost eight years.

Prior to that, he was twice elected to the post of president of the All-Russian Union of Insurers, was the president of the National Union of Liability Insurers, the Russian Union of Auto Insurers, ”the website of the Cabinet says.

As the government specified, the appointment of a new chairman of the FSS instead of Kigim who moved to the FIU will be announced additionally.

Maxim Topilin from 1994 to 2001 worked in the apparatus of the Russian government.

In July 2001, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Development of the country, and in March 2004, he headed the Federal Service for Labor and Employment.

At the same time, since May 2005, he was the chief state labor inspector of the Russian Federation.

In May 2012, he took over as Minister of Labor and Social Protection in the government of Dmitry Medvedev.

With the arrival of Mikhail Mishustin in the Cabinet of Ministers in January 2020, Topilin was appointed Chairman of the PFR Board.

Georgy Ostapkovich, director of the Center for Market Research at the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge at the Higher School of Economics, explains the change in the head of the PFR by the possible desire of the authorities to ensure a "breakthrough" in the Russian pension system.

The expert told about this in an interview with RT.

“Currently in Russia there is a difficult demographic situation: the number of able-bodied citizens is decreasing, and the population is aging, which leads to an additional burden on the pension system.

Therefore, we need a person who would be able to reverse the negative trend, find new solutions and, in some way, reboot, ”Ostapkovich said.

In addition, Topilin's resignation from the post of head of the FIU may be related to the government's plans to launch a "social treasury" system.

This point of view in a conversation with RT was expressed by Nikita Maslennikov, head of the "Finance and Economics" direction of the Institute of Contemporary Development.

Recall that the creation of a "social treasury" is included in the government's plan to restore the economy after the coronavirus pandemic.

We are talking about the development of a mechanism for the provision of social assistance to citizens in an unconditional manner.

“In the long term, such a transition will require effective technical management skills, which Andrei Kigim may have.

As you know, the sphere of social insurance is an understandable path for him, and in the future it may become necessary to optimize the activities of the PFR, ”Maslennikov added.

Economists interviewed by RT also associate the appointment of Andrey Kigim with a possible combination of social extra-budgetary funds - the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, the FSS and the Mandatory Medical Insurance Fund (MHIF).

This initiative was earlier made by the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Tatyana Golikova.

“We must eliminate the need to create parallel information systems by all three state extra-budgetary funds.

The resources they spend on informatization are quite large.

In this regard, we risk proposing to consider the issue of creating a single organizational structure - a unified state non-budgetary fund that would unite all these funds, "Golikova said in 2018 at the Gaidar Forum.

  • Tatiana Golikova

  • © RIA Novosti / Alexander Astafiev

Of the two heads of the Pension Fund and the Social Security Fund, the government, according to various criteria, selected a person who could more technologically conduct the process of pooling funds.

Alexander Abramov, head of the laboratory for the analysis of institutions and financial markets at the Institute for Applied Economic Research, RANEPA, shared this opinion with RT.

“Since Andey Kigim has been the head of the Social Fund for many years, he is a rather sophisticated person who knows all the subtleties of the work of a social fund.

In turn, Maxim Topilin worked as the head of the PFR for only a year and, probably, in such a short period of time did not have time to fully master the work of fund management, "Abramov explained.

According to him, the consolidation of the funds would make it possible to reduce the administrative staff.

The result would be fewer different departmental systems and lower administrative costs.

“Perhaps there will be more progress in building a system for registering the rights of persons in various social insurance programs.

One of the difficulties, due to which pension savings were frozen, was associated with the lack of an effective system for recording the rights of participants.

There were many errors in the FIU databases.

If the organizations are united, they will have an incentive to work to improve their IT systems.

This would be a great blessing for citizens, make both the pension system and the social insurance system more efficient, ”Abramov concluded.