With the draft law on the budget for the upcoming year, the Government continues with a risky policy of issuing government guarantees, and only for two projects there is a plan to issue guarantees to cover loans totaling 26 million euros. This policy of the Government in previous years has cost taxpayers deeply, as over 181 million euros of fallen guarantees already they paid through higher taxes, introducing new taxes or freezing pensions.
The Government plans to issue in the coming year guarantees for a loan of 20 million euros to Montenegrin Transmission System (CGES) taken from the German Development Bank for the construction of electricity infrastructure on the peninsula Lustica, as well as for railway infrastructure loan from the European Investment Bank of six million euros, which is intended for the reconstruction of the railway infrastructure.
Debt based on issued guarantees on domestic and foreign loans at the end of last year amounted to a staggering 307 million euros, and by the beginning of this year from the state budget on the basis of guarantees was paid out over 181 million, which created a deficit in the state budget, and the Government engaged not only in adversely borrowing to fill up the holes in the budget, but also implies new levies to the citizens.
We remind that the highest paid guarantees were for loans of KAP, Ironworks Niksic, Bauxite Mines, and newspaper company Pobjeda, then Electrode factory in Plužine, company Primorka from Bar, and company Mi-Rai from Niksic. None of the issued guarantees was secured with the contra-guarantee, and time has shown that they have not helped the economic survival of companies and the creation of new and preservation of existing jobs.
In this regard, it is striking persistence of the Government to continue with the firm policies of the issuance of new government guarantees, especially when it comes to projects that are in the private, not the public interest, as is indisputably the project Lustica at the peninsula with the same name, where the foreign investor is building a tourist complex.
Officials of the Ministry of Finance still have not explained why the construction of electricity infrastructure at the peninsula Lustica, for the purposes of private projects, would have priority over the construction of such infrastructure in any other place in the country, of which the citizens would benefit, not predominantly a private investor, and what will be the provision of scheduled loan of 20 million euros. This also because CGES recently could barely provided for the provision of this year’s loan of 40 million euros for the construction of the transmission line to Pljevlja, as part of the project of submarine interconnection between Montenegro and Italy.
In addition, the law draft on the Budget contains a number of other legal related problem solutions, so the Government projects more funds for the payment of gross earnings in the amount of 13 million euros on the basis of the draft law on Salaries of public sector employees, although the legal act has not yet addressed for the parliamentary procedure, not to mention his adoption.
In the end, only the few segments of the draft law on the Budget for the year 2016 show that the Government projected very problematically certain budget items, and because of some, the price again could pay citizens through increased fiscal levies.
The draft law on the Budget will be discussed tomorrow at the parliamentary Committee for Economics, Finance and Budget.
MANS
