Pavel Latushko: Deputy Head of the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus, Head of the National Anti-Crisis Management, Ambassador
Back in March 2022, while instructing the new director of the Belarusian Potash Company, Aleksey Skrag, Lukashenko said "now working on the potash market will be akin to trading in weapons and other special equipment. Everything must be quiet". Lukashenko personally admitted that he has something to hide and demanded silence.
The trade in potash fertilizers has always been maximally monopolized and closed. Thus, according to the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of March 29, 2022 No. 189, legal entities can export potash fertilizers only under exclusive licenses issued by the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade on the basis of decisions of the Council of Ministers. That is, random people simply won't be able to get into this market.
But does such a scheme work everywhere in the world? And is it possible to improve the lives of all Belarusians, and not just some of them, like Lukashenko, Sheiman and the like, without privatizing the largest state enterprises, which Lukashenko's propagandists are so frightening us with?
It turns out that it is possible. And a very good example is a truly social state, which is located in Europe and is not yet part of the European Union. And this state is Norway.
To manage the portfolio of state shares in licenses issued for geological exploration and production of oil and natural gas on the continental shelf in Norway, the state company Petoro was created, which is also vested with the right to exercise control over the activities of the Norwegian state oil and gas company Equinor. All profits received annually by Petoro from state shares in oil and gas fields in Norway are transferred to the State Pension Fund, which was created in 1990 to invest the income of the Norwegian oil sector.
The Norwegians realized that simply throwing petrodollars from a helicopter is not very rational. Firstly, because inflation will begin, and secondly, because in the absence of incentives for development, everyone will relax. Therefore, the Norwegians directed part of their income to infrastructure, and they decided to invest all surplus petrodollars in the state pension fund.
Thus, Norway's natural resources form the pension and social fund of this Scandinavian country, and its natural benefits are used not only by individual oligarchs and people especially close to the country's leadership, but by all its permanent residents.
Another good example of reasonable and fair management of national wealth is the Alaska Permanent Fund. This is a fund created by the state that manages profits from oil production. 25% of the state's profits from oil turnover go to this Fund. Half of the income is directly distributed among Alaska residents through dividends. Each resident receives the same amount annually. The payment is recalculated each year and depends on the oil revenues of the last five years, as well as on the number of people in the corresponding year who should receive the funds due. The funds received by each Alaska resident average about $2,000 per year.
The money is credited to people in a special bank account. The "oil rent" can be spent on various purposes: education, car fuel, a ticket for a trip, or transferred to a pension fund.
In these two examples, we see that national wealth can and should be managed more rationally and fairly.
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