A 0.5% of GDP drop in the volume of arrears is one of the Finance Ministry's top priorities for next year, prompting the ministry officials to start monitoring the spending and revenues budgets of the state-owned enterprises, Finance minister Mihai Tanasescu said.
According to Tanasescu, arrears have dropped 4,500bn ROL since May 2001. Also, debts had come to account for 4 percent of GDP in 2000, only to go down to 2.5-3% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2003.
The Ministry will start monitoring the budgets of state-owned companies as soon as Parliament enforces the budget Law. This procedure is set to become the main instrument used in the fight against accumulation of historical debts.
According to Mihai Tanasescu, the ministry will continue next year to monitor the companies that have been piling debts to the State and the restructuring programmes they implement in order to cut spending. Finance Ministry teams will be entrusted with the monitoring process and the ministry may even plant operatives inside the companies, to analyse payments and bill collection, in order to strengthen financial discipline.
The authorities have proved unable to impose financial discipline at the state-owned companies, so far. The only valid solution was privatisation of loss-making enterprises, as the piling debts to the state were actually erased before selling the respective companies.
The Government failed at cutting arrears, as shown by the increased share of these historical debts in the Gross Domestic Product, from some 35.76% in 2001 to 37 percent in 2002.
According to information released by the Finance Ministry, 80 large state-owned companies had historical debts of 54,800bn ROL to the state budget in August 2003, down from 60,700 billion ROL in July 2001.
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