The Anti-Corruption Council recommended to the Government of Serbia to plan subsidies, incentives and reliefs according to priorities of national importance from real sources, and not with new borrowing, and to review the allocation of subsidies and expensive reliefs to foreign investors.
“What is the purpose of subsidies, given primarily to foreign investors, which from 2014 to the first half of 2020 alone in direct payments amount to over 500 million euros, no competent institution has provided a response,” the Council said in the Report on Incentives, Subsidies and relief in Serbia which was submitted to the Government.
It was pointed out that the budget for 2020 planned 812 million euros for subsidies, in order to increase that amount to 2.3 billion euros through two budget revisions.
“Such a large increase in expenditures on the basis of state aid was not planned in the budget for 2020, so it can only be provided from credit funds, where credit conditions are inaccessible to the public and where there should be additional responsibility for spending those funds,” the Council said.
The proposal of the Council is that subsidies, incentives and reliefs should be agreed in accordance with the Law on Budget and not to be changed by numerous regulations during the current year.
“Competent institutions, through which state aid is realized, should analyze the previously granted state aid and determine the effects of that aid, so that the policy of allocating new funds changes depending on the previously achieved results,” the Council stated in the report.
The report, published on the Council’s website (antikorupcija-savet.gov.rs), assessed that the Government should control whether the state aid received by micro, small and medium enterprises was spent for the purposes for which it was determined and that priorities should be to be productive rather than service activities as is the case now, BizLife reports.
