In response to the text "Surplus of 30 million, and 108 million not paid", the Ministry of Finance states that the text and title are not true, and then in the response itself they admit that budget spending was lower than planned by 108 million euros and would have all planned obligations were paid, the budget was in deficit.
What then is not true, or the purpose of the reaction is not to point out "non-objective interpretation" but a political campaign to point out that "Vijesti" is allegedly writing untruthfully about the work of the Government, that they hate the government and Montenegro and that they do not see a general increase in the standard of living.
But let's start in order. It is the government that announced that a surplus of 30 million was achieved in half a year, without mentioning the key thing that led to the mathematically realized surplus, which is that 108 million euros of planned obligations were not paid.
"Vijesti" did not state anywhere that the Government owed someone 108 million, but that they did not pay the planned obligations. Expenditures may be lower than planned for a number of reasons - that the Government did not pay some obligations, that those obligations did not arrive for payment in the planned period due to delays, that the Government or some spending units gave up on some projects or purchases... However, regardless of which all reasons being such a reduction in expenditure led to the current surplus.
The Ministry states that the reduction in planned expenditures "is the result of efficient management of public spending."
However, when you look at the structure of those costs, it's not quite like that. For example, 12,8 million euros were not paid for the capital budget. It's not savings, but the contractor is late with the works, so the payment is just delayed.
DON'T MISS IT
It is a very graphic explanation that 15 million euros were "saved" on the payment of rights from the field of social protection, pension and disability insurance, because the increase in pensions and social benefits was less than planned?!
That these are not savings is also shown by the data from the Fiscal Strategy Draft (which was written at the beginning of July), where all these expenses on which the Government "saved" are shown in the full planned amounts, and for the following years until 2027, they are listed in larger amounts. This proves that the vast majority of these costs are real, they are just not paid, so it is "saved".
The Ministry's allegations are also denied by its second document - the report on the realization of the budget for the period January - November last year. For these 11 months, as stated in it, a surplus of 158 million euros was realized, and 122 million planned obligations were not paid. In the report for January - December, it means only when one more month is added, the surplus drops to only 10 million. So the deficit in December amounted to 148 million euros.
No disaster happened in that December, all those obligations that were "saved" for the past 11 months were simply paid. This will happen this year as well, but the Government will not spread it on social networks.
Goran Kapor
Bonus video:
