Municipalities across Serbia owe one billion euros
Towns and municipalities, together with their public companies, have a debt of nearly one billion euros and they are late in paying their due liabilities to suppliers in the amount of about 300 million euros.
On the other hand, the failure to pay due liabilities gives a false impression that they do not have a deficit. Inadequate management of public finances at the local level is one of the greatest risks to the stability of public finances, the Novosti daily reports.
The Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government emphasizes that a big fiscal problem at the local level is the fact that their budgets are not credible, that is, there is a big deviation between the planned budget and execution.
Revenues are unrealistically presented so that the planned deficit would not be significant, the Ministry says. According to an analysis of the Fiscal Council, the result is that local self-governments do not achieve about 15 percent of planned revenues and about 20 percent of planned expenditures on average. The expenditure structure is also bad at the local level. Too much is spent on subsidies, but not enough on capital expenditures.
Izvor: Novosti
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