The final accounts of the Serbian budget from 2002 to 2018, submitted to the Serbian Parliament, show that the actual spending of budget users is significantly higher than the amounts that were in the budget plans and reports of the Ministry of Finance on current budget execution, according to the analysis published by the Fiscal Council.
“After three years of non-publication and seventeen years of failure to approve the final accounts in the National Assembly, these important laws for the period 2002-2018 entered the parliamentary procedure, which made a significant step towards improving the system of managing public finances, since only the final accounts provide the final and sufficiently comprehensive information on the implementation of the budget of the Republic of Serbia”, the Council analysis pointed out.
The final accounts showed, according to the Council, there is a part of the expenditure of budget users not covered by regular reporting, which averages around 570 million euros per year.
“Also, the final accounts show that about 850 million euros per year is spent differently from the plan outlined in the budget and adopted in the Assembly. Although it was known in principle that budget appropriations change during the year using budgetary reserves and other non-transparent sources, it is only now possible to see the value and structure of these changes. They are not completely economically problematic (for example, about a quarter of that amount is related to capital expenditures increase), but it is still too large to be allocated completely outside the parliamentary procedure and public insight that the budget law went through“, explained the Council.
Some of the shortcomings of the proposed budget accounts are, according to the independent body, a missed opportunity to present some important information, such as to whom and why huge fines and penalties were paid, what public companies paid part of the profits to the budget and in what amount, which companies are beneficiaries of foreign investor subsidies, etc.
“The final accounts provide an insight into extra-budgetary revenue and have been shown to be systematically undervalued in budget plans. Extra-budgetary revenues are mainly financed by current expenditures, which is why expenditures for employees’ wages are higher than previously thought”, the Fiscal Council, stated in the analysis.
It is added that expenditures financed by the current budget reserve are large, growing and mostly opaque.
