DRAFT 2020 STATE BUDGET APPROVED IN FIRST READING

Deputy Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, Chairman of the DA Platform faction Alexandru Slusari regards the draft Law on the 2020 State Budget as “a populist document aimed at ensuring re-election for a second term to President Igor Dodon” at the polls due in a year from now.

Speaking in the Parliament on Thursday, Slusari reminded that in the autumn of 2018, the then-opposition Party of Socialists strongly criticized the draft Budget for 2019 prepared by then-ruling Democratic Party, claiming that the document was obviously aimed at the approaching parliamentary campaign [the election was held on the following February 24], “And now look, the Government of Socialists has presented to us by-far more populist a draft Budget!”

In his words, last year Socialist MP Vladimir Golovatiuc predicted a yawning hole for the 2019 State Budget. Everything happened precisely so: by past summer, the deficit had reached 4.1 billion lei.

“That hole in the Budget was constantly discussed by Socialists Ion Ceban and Vlad Batrincea. And the whole PSRM faction recognized then that without unblocking of foreign funding, in September 2019 Moldova would necessarily start suffering problems with repaying salaries to public sector employees. The name of the Minister of Finance who drafted the 2019 Budget is known to everybody – this is the technocrat currently on dictators’ service Ion Chicu, our incumbent Premier. This year he has sent to parliament yet a more pre-electoral draft Budget with a deficit of 7.4 billion lei or 4% GDP”, stated Alexandru Slusari indignantly.

In response, Chairman of the parliamentary Standing Committee for Public Finance Control Vladimir Golovatiuc, a prominent Moldovan economist, explained that the 7.4-billion-lei Budget deficit includes projects receiving funding from external sources and therefore a real deficit is smaller than was projected by the draft 2019 Budget.

“We have a negative norm of savings, and have no sources for development. We are doomed to use external sources, but not for current expenditures – for investments so as to invest in the economy’s future development and on this basis – for ensuring a growth of citizens’ wellbeing, of incomes and expenditures. Last year, the growth of capital expenditures was 3% and of current ones – 11%, and for 2020 the figures are projected at 26% and 8% growth, respectively”, said Vladimir Golovatiuc.

On Thursday, the draft 2020 State Budget was approved in a first reading by a majority of Socialist and Democrat MPs. It stipulates revenues of 44.1 billion lei (+ 3.5 billion or +8.6%), expenditures of 51.5 billion lei (+5.2 billion or 11.2%) and a deficit of around 7.4 billion lei.