The Finance Ministry has finally brought itself to admit the Ordinance 61/2002 version enacted by a law and regulating the collection of budgetary debt is giving trouble to both banks and companies that need imports.
It took the heat caused by the publication of the law in the Official Gazette to make the Finance Ministry admit to certain insufficiently explained issues, as well as provisions giving trouble to importers and customs authorities alike. Considering the modification of the law was too complicated, the compromise solution was to come back with clarifications in Ordinance 36/2003, which has already been enacted by the Government and which was intended to sort out a series of troublesome stipulations in the fiscal-financial legislation endorsed last year. Ordinance 36 is supposed to go through Parliament and be published in about 10 days.
The texts introduced in Ordinance 36 specify the budgetary creditors no longer take precedence over the liens of a company defaulting.
At the same time, according to the amendments, the customs authority will clear the imported goods as soon as proof of duty payment is produced, without having to wait for the money to reach the Treasury accounts.
"The talks of the Senate Budget-Finance Committee over Ordinance 36 today (Tuesday) resulted in introducing certain texts, that is the State is equal to the banking system in its position as creditor," Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu said. The bankers had complained that Ordinance 61 allowed the budgetary creditor to take precedence over the real guarantee of the other creditors, banks included, which would have affected small and medium-sized companies first of all. This is because the stipulation in question was supposed to make banks much more reluctant in granting loans.
Following a meeting with the bankers and after the importers' protests, Tanasescu admits, "some of the provisions may not have been crystal clear." The amendments to Ordinance 61 also include making the information provided by banks to Finance Ministry confidential.
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