In just six days of February, the Government paid out 120.000 euros in aid to natural persons from the budget reserve, in the amounts of 2.000 to 200 each, for education, treatment, improvement of the material situation (whatever that means), discretionary decision-making and the continuation of bad practices of previous governments , it was announced today from the Institute of Alternatives (IA).
"Thus, the Commission for the distribution of part of the budget reserve spent more than half of its budget for this year in less than a week, as it was initially determined. The General Secretariat requested an additional 300 last Sunday, but we do not know whether that conclusion was adopted ", it is emphasized in the announcement of IA published on their Facebook page.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) added that the Council for the fight against corruption at a high level last year recommended that grants from the budget reserve in the name of aid be stopped until a new rulebook and more precise criteria are adopted, but as stated by the IA, The government ignored that conclusion and distributed over 400.000 in aid through the decisions of this commission in 2021.
"The regulations have not been changed since 2009 and allow very broad interpretations and a free hand for the Government to hand out money to whomever it wants outside of the official social protection system. This is a practice that we criticized under the previous governments, and the new one just continued the same," they said. from IA.
They said that they requested documentation on the division of the reserve from the General Secretariat of the Government and the Budget Reserve Commission.
"We did not receive a response, even after the Agency for Free Access to Information adopted our complaint about the administration's silence. In this regard, we had the same experience when the DPS (Democratic Party of Socialists) led the government. We appealed to the government to change the rulebook , on the deputies to oblige the Government to make this part of spending transparent and reduce the discretionary powers of the Cabinet of Ministers and the Government Commission through the amendment of the system law. Everything was in vain and the old practice continued," the IA statement reads.
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