Ministry of Finance imposes rules for using budget resources for capital repairs and investments

The Ministry of Finance bans the central and local authorities from initiating public acquisition procedures for making capital investments and carrying out thorough repairs of over 100,000 lei, which are financed from the national public budget, without the necessary documentation and expenditure estimate. This is stipulated in an order of the Ministry of Finance concerning the method of financing capital repairs envisaged in the state budget law for 2008 to which Info-Prim Neo makes reference. Under the new order, when preparing and presenting the contracts for having the capital repairs and investments financed from the state budget, there will be accepted only the contracts signed by the central and local public authorities of districts (of second level). According to the Ministry, the practice of transmitting the duties of the local and central public authorities of the second level to the subordinated bodies showed multiple negative effects in their activity and namely: incompetence, negligence of the legislative and normative documents, overstatement of the volume and value of works, lack of bookkeeping etc. At the request of the beneficiaries in construction and thorough repairs, the Ministry of Finance will make preliminary payments of about 30% of the sum planned for organising the technological processes, procuring materials and equipment, except for the last three months of the budgetary year. When asking for such payments, the beneficiaries will present a timetable confirming that the sums paid in advance have been used to carry out works during the given year. The local budgets will receive money from the state budget to finance capital repairs and investments only if they present the contracts drawn up in compliance with the public acquisition procedure to the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance recommends the local public authorities to use their own available funds for financing such works. They should also use the money allocated for capital repairs and investment from the budget according to the purpose. Otherwise, the local public authorities will be held accountable. A sum of about 59.6 million lei was included in the budget law for being allocated to the local public authorities for capital investments.