BRATISLAVA, November 3, (WEBNOVINY) – The law on the state budget for 2010 needs to be changed, the Cabinet decided on Wednesday when it approved a draft revision to the law. It at the same time requests its adoption in a shortened legislative procedure in parliament. According to spokesman for the Finance Ministry Martin Jaros, the reason for this is the discord between the state budget law adopted by the previous government and economic reality. “The planned general government deficit of 5.5 percent of GDP in 2010 proved to be unrealistic. Current estimate of this year’s deficit is at the level of 7.84 percent of GDP,” said Jaros.
After the regular Cabinet session, Finance Minister Ivan Miklos stated that this year’s result is proof of a very badly compiled state budget. In his opinion, the parameters it was based on are the evidence of it. “The budget was prepared with estimated economic growth of 1.9 percent while in reality it will be 4 percent. Despite this, we have the increase the estimated deficit from 5.5 percent of GDP to 7.84 percent of GDP. This shows as well how tax and other revenue was overvalued,” said Miklos.
The previous government of Robert Fico projected budget revenues for this year at EUR 12.531 billion on expenditures of EUR 16.277 billion. The planned deficit was EUR 3.746 billion. Finance Minister Miklos had announced early after taking up his post in July that the budget in its current form was unrealistic and it would need to be revised. Miklos explained the shortened legislative procedure by saying that it was not possible to estimate the real income and expenditures sooner also due to the political change as well as because of estimating the development of this year. Moreover, the revision is necessary so that we could cover this increased deficit technically, stated Miklos. The revision will take effects as of the day of its announcement in the Law Code.
SITA