The Government’s report on the fulfilment of the 2017 state budget was compiled appropriately and the implementation of the provisions concerning revenues and costs, deficit and balances related to the budgetary exercise that ended on December 31, 2017 corresponds to the monitoring data of the treasury system, show the results the financial audit on the 2017 state budget fulfillment and performance of the public debt conducted by the Court of Auditors that was presented in a public meeting, IPN reports.
The 2017 state budget provided for revenues of 33.778,3 billion lei and an expenditure of 37.802,6 billion lei, with a budget deficit of 4.024,2 billion lei. It was determined that the revenues were by 169.1 million lei higher than the projections, while the expenditure was by 2.323,4 billion lei lower. The budget deficit was by 2.492,5 billion lei lower and was 1.531,7 billion lei. Therefore, the 2017 budget revenue projections were 100.5% fulfilled, while the expenditure projections – 93.9% fulfilled.
As to the verified financial aspects, the audit report reveals particular shortcomings that do not yet influence the state budget fulfillment. Among these is the non-ensuring of mutual verifications between the Ministry of Finance and the State Tax Service concerning the mandatory contributions of wine producers collected in 2017, in the amount of 20.3 million lei. Also, the budget calendar wasn’t respected when drafting, approving and reporting on the state budget for 2017. Money was repeatedly allocated from the reserve fund for the same costs (2.1m lei) and the appraisals of the Ministry of Finance were absent in some of the cases (2.2m lei).
The continuous and ascendant rise in the financial dependence of budgets of another level on the state budget, especially of the local public administration, affects the sustainability of the state budget. The transfers from the state budget to the local budgets exceeded about 2.5 times the own revenues.
In the same meeting, of May 28, there was examined the audit report on the performance of the 2017 public sector debt management. The audit mission established that on December 31, 2017, the public sector debt was lower compared with the corresponding period a year before. The balance of the public sector debt was 58.451,7 billion lei, 34.179,2 million (US$1.998,8bn) of which was the external debt and 24.272,5 billion lei was the internal debt. The balance of the public sector debt in 2017 declined by 851.4 million lei (1.4%) on a year before. This debt at the end of last year represented 38.9% of the GDP, a decrease of 4.9%.
The Court of Auditors recommended to consolidate the process of managing the public sector debt, especially of the state debt, by developing the debt portfolio, sustainability risks and vulnerability surveillance and monitoring management so as to avoid additional financial risks to the state budget. Minister of Finance Octavian Armasu said the recommendations formulated by the Court are valuable, noting there were established fruitful cooperation relations between the audit team and the Ministry’s employees. He stated some of the discrepancies in figures are due to the reorganization of some of the central public authorities and of the treasury last yearend.
