ZAGREB, Sept 17 (Hina) - The government budget is being executed well and there will be no need for revision, but there is need for a reallocation of funds since expenditure in some places is greater than planned, Finance Minister
Mato Crkvenac informed the parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee which adopted a report on the budget's execution for this year's first six months.
ZAGREB, Sept 17 (Hina) - The government budget is being executed
well and there will be no need for revision, but there is need for a
reallocation of funds since expenditure in some places is greater
than planned, Finance Minister Mato Crkvenac informed the
parliamentary Finance and Budget Committee which adopted a report
on the budget's execution for this year's first six months. #L#
In the half-year period the budget's revenues amounted to 32.8
billion kuna, or 46.9 percent of the amount planned -- 70 billion
kuna for the entire year. Expenditure reached 34.1 billion, making
up for 48 percent of the planned 71.1 billion for this year.
Crkvenac said that more money than had been planned (about 380
million kuna) was spent on salaries at the ministries of defence,
interior affairs and education.
The government planned quicker reforms in the defence system, but
this did not happen. After the budget was adopted, certain bonuses
for some police activities were established, as well as corrections
to collective agreements in education, the minister explained.
He said that positive trends in the economy continued, and the
budget was essentially being executed as conceived.
Opposition MPs did not share Crkvenac's optimism, claiming that the
stability of the budget was being maintained by debts.
Ivan Suker of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that in the
first six months, the state had incurred 6.8 billion kuna of debts,
and in the period of two and a half years during which the incumbent
government has been in power, national debt has increased by 30
billion kuna.
Crkvenac replied the Opposition should commend the fact that the
least funds were being spent on that which had earlier been
extensively financed, and added that the HDZ's government could not
have incurred short-term debts under favourable conditions.
Committee members adopted a Croatian National Bank (HNB) report on
the development and work of bank supervisory instruments from 1992
through 2002, without a lengthy discussion.
The committee's president, Jadranko Mijalic, was the only one to
comment, criticising HNB representatives for "fabricating and
sugar-coating" the report and the lack of progress in solving the
financial wrongdoing in Rijecka Bank.
The report should have focused on the answer to why the HNB
supervision did not act in a preventive manner in any of the cases,
and that 33 banks and savings banks have gone bankrupt, he said.
He added that the expenses of banking crises in Croatia amounted to
56 billion kuna, with 400,000 clients having been damaged.
HNB vice-governor Cedo Maletic said that the Bank had drawn up the
report in accordance with the parliament's conclusions, that the
HNB advocated a thorough investigation into what happened in
Rijecka Banka, that the Bank had not given up on hiring a foreign
forensic expert, but that this was expensive.
Without a discussion, committee members took note of HNB's report
on granted managerial loans. All requested information had been
submitted apart from the names of the people who had received the
loans, deputy HNB governor Boris Vujcic said.
He explained that the Bank had their names, but it was the stance of
the Bank's legal service that law and the Bank's secret would be
violated if their names were divulged.
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