Government makes budget amendment
The government approved a state budget amendment, the social security budget and the unemployment security budget.
Corina Cristea, 24.09.2024, 14:00
The first budget amendment this year, which the government adopted on Monday, takes the budget deficit up to 6.9% and revises the economic growth forecast down to 2.8% from 3.4% previously. The amendment is, however, positive, says prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, because it allocates additional resources to major investment projects, while the deficit level is sustainable, given that 8.5 lei out of 10 lei spent will go into motorways, hospitals, schools, gas and water supply networks and other local interest projects.
The 2024 budget was from the start created around large infrastructure projects and major strategic projects and aimed at improving public services for people, said the finance minister Marcel Boloș, who explained that supporting investments is one of the four important pillars of the budget amendment, alongside support for education, healthcare and social programmes for citizens.
The minister also said that in order to go ahead with European-funded investment projects, the government has allocated 2.5 billion lei, to be divided as follows:
“The ministry for regional development will get a further 2 billion lei, the ministry for investments and European projects will get 3.2 billion lei, the ministry of transport 5 billion lei, the ministry of agriculture 4 billion lei and the ministry of finance 11 billion lei.”
Marcel Boloș said 10.4 billion lei will go into covering pay rises in education and healthcare. The National Healthcare House also got an extra 11.3 billion lei to finance the running of hospitals and for individual medical practices. The local public authorities will also get additional funds to cover pupil transport costs, the fees of caregivers of persons with disabilities and the payment of debts to utility suppliers.
“The government approved the budget amendment for the state budget, the social security budget and the unemployment security budget taking into account the macroeconomic forecasts drafted by the National Commission for Prognosis”, the finance minister explained. He said the amendment with respect to budget revenues took into account two important factors: a better collection of state revenues, amounting to 10.4 billion lei, and another resulting from the approval of an emergency order on tax amnesty amounting to 7.9 billion lei. The budget amendment was also prompted by an increase in budget revenues following the digitisation of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration and the implementation of anti-fraud modules (e-VAT, e-transport and fiscal risk indicators).
