The budget for 2020, which has been approved yesterday by the Government and is due to be debated in Parliament, has electoral overtones. This is the opinion of MP Lilian Carp. According to him, the budget allows for a very large budget deficit, but it is not yet known how it will be covered, IPN reports.
MP Lilian Carp maintains that the approved budget has, on the one hand, an electoral intent, and, on the other hand, behind this social budget screen there could occur certain frauds through privatizations that raise many questions. "It is a budget that does not differ much from the 2019 budget, which had a deficit of over five billion lei," says the parliamentarian.
According to him, the main issue is that it is not clear from what sources this budget deficit will be covered. "The problem concerns the sources that can cover this budget deficit rather than the deficit itself. Probably some assets, some state-owned enterprises will be put up for sale, while the amount is of almost 50 million euros. It is to be feared that we could go back to that list of privatizations, proposed in 2019, of some state-owned enterprises such as "Moldtelecom", the Tobacco Factory, whose prices will be lowered," says Lilian Carp.
Former Minister of Defense, Secretary General of the Green Ecological Party, Vitalie Marinuța, is also of the opinion that this budget is an electoral one designed to put in a good light the ruling party and the current government, endorsed by President Igor Dodon, and to provide the head of state with support for the next presidential elections. "It's a socially oriented budget. If we analyze it, we can see that most of the figures in the social field are on the rise. It is a budget with a very large deficit of 7.4 billion lei. In the revenue column figures are higher than this year, in the expenditure column also. Many social benefits have been raised, but there is no specific source of revenue,” says Vitalie Marinuța. In his opinion, for the execution of the budget, the Government will borrow a lot domestically, diminishing the capacity of small business to credit itself internally or increasing the credit interest. In addition, some state assets could be sold by tender.
Former Minister of the Environment and leader of Save Bessarabia Union, Valeriu Munteanu, argues that such budgets that have a great social benefits weight when there are no substantial financial capital inflows in the economy, worsen the situation for 3-5 years to come. "We must realize that 150 million euros from Romania will not come, no money will come from the European Union and at this point we are already in trouble," the politician believes. According to him, this budget looks very good from a social point of view, but from an economic point of view there will be repercussions.
Yesterday, the Government approved the draft law on the state budget for 2020. The document provides for revenues of 44.1 billion lei and expenditure of 51.5 billion lei. The deficit exceeds 7 billion lei. The budget is based on an economic growth of 3.8%, an average annual inflation of 5.7%, an increase in exports by 9% and in imports by 7.1%.
