BRATISLAVA, May 17, (WEBNOVINY) — Prime Minister Robert Fico considers mayors to be a rich source of experience, and therefore he will never identify himself with the idea that they should not be part of regional parliaments or the National Council, the Slovak Parliament. “On the contrary, their presence in Parliament is a guarantee that Parliament will be closer to the people,” Fico stated at the 23rd Congress of the Association of Towns and Villages of Slovakia (ZMOS). Therefore, the prime minister will never support any legislative initiative that would impose restrictions on heads of self-governments.
At the congress, Robert Fico invited ZMOS representatives to joint the Solidarity Council, which he is founding as of May 17. According to the prime minister, in 2005-2006, fiscal decentralization was deformed, when most competencies devolved from the central government to towns and villages without adequate financial coverage. Later, there was space only to patch up holes, but not for systemic solutions. “Financial development of towns and villages in 2011 and so far 2012 have confirmed the justification of ZMOS’s position that exact quantification of individual competencies should be a priority,” the prime minister said.
A few months ago, the proposal of Robert Fico and Vladimir Faic to carry out an audit of devolved competencies was passed in Parliament. According to information available to Fico, the number of tasks and competencies of towns and villages increased over a period of six years from 3,067 to 4,820 or by over 57 percent. At the same time, an important source of self-governments’ funding, revenue from personal income tax has dropped considerably.
SITA
