The Fiscal Council has warned that the Serbian government spent almost 200 million euros from the 2021 budget reserve without disclosing what this money was spent on.
A total of 22 billion dinars (about 190 million euros) were paid out from the budget reserve and these expenses are not accounted for.
The Fiscal Council made the discovery by analyzing the final account of the 2021 budget. “It is especially interesting that just 3 percent of the overall expenses went to the BIA (Security Intelligence Agency) while the rest went to beneficiaries that had nothing to do with state security. This is very hard to explain rationally,” the Council’s report said.
The Fiscal Council added that the budget reserve mechanism was set up to allow the government to decide how to re-direct budget funds without the National Parliament approving it first and that those funds were often used for to finance ongoing policies, not emergency situations.
The report also noted that the Finance Ministry received 17.7 billion dinars from the budget reserve late in December 2021 and added that the money might have been used to subsidize the national gas supplier Srbijagas.
The Fiscal Council added that the Economy Ministry received 1.5 billion dinars and another 750 million dinars from the state budget reserves in December 2021 and that 300 million dinars went to the Government’s General Secretariat that same month. Smaller amounts were allocated to the Public Defenders Office, the Property Directorate and the government’s air service.
(021.rs, 07.12.2022)
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