The budget may run out of money at yearend if the Government does not cut expenses scheduled for the state-owned institutions benefiting from budget credits. As less and less money has been collected to the budget over the past months, a large part of expenses may remain uncovered.
The only solution for the Executive would be a “technical” adjustment, shifting certain amounts from one pocket to the other, without harming the 3.5% budget deficit agreed upon with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
This is the only variant accepted by the IMF, which is aware of the low level of amounts collected to the budget over the past months, under the estimated level, having accordingly demanded that expenses should be adjusted.
Under these circumstances, the Finance Ministry has to find the ways to re-allot some funds from the state budget in order to provide money for the “urgent” expense needs that have already started to loom ahead and that could increase in December.
“I think we could transfer funds from one credit recipient to another, so that we could maintain the deficit at a stable level,” Finance Ministry sources said.
The state budget collected only 326,357 billion ROL (against an estimated annual 371,503 billion ROL), which stands for 87.8% of the amount that was to be raised.
International Monetary Fund experts in the last report released at the end of October warned against the high fluctuations in the revenues collected to the state budget, saying that these could interfere with the government’s plans.
While the revenues collected between April and June to the state budget exceeded all expectations, allowing the budget deficit to adjust to the 3.5% level, the situation has reversed over the past months, so that the budget may run out of money in December if expenses are not adjusted.
“If we do not succeed to collect the revenues, we will adjust the level of expenses,” Premier Adrian Nastase said.
However, the budget adjustment, which has been heralded by Public Administration minister Octavian Cozmanca but was not confirmed by the Finance Ministry, can only help the Government to operate expense cuts. The ministries to be affected by these measures are not known for the time being.