Investments made with public funds amounted to only 766 million euros in the first half of the year, compared with the over three billion euros projected for such investments for the entire year.
Investments carried out in the first half of the year accounted for only a quarter (a little above 25 percent) of the sum planned for the entire year, namely half the expected pace. In other words, the state halted investments worth around 700-800 million euros of the 1.5 billion-euro sum scheduled in the first half, according to Finance Ministry financial data.
"Public procurement legislation was modified in June, while the enforcement guidelines for the new legislative stipulations came out significantly late," explains Varujan Vosganian, a member of the Liberal Party, head of the Budget-Finance Committee within the Senate. He says that the European Commission, too, provided some comment about the enforcement guidelines for public investment contracts, which delayed their endorsement.
The Liberal senator stated the Finance Ministry had "a great responsibility of speeding up these investment procedures".
Expenses related to investments in road infrastructure lagged farthest behind schedule, as shown by the budget use statistics of the Romanian National Highway and National Roads Company (CNADNR).
By mid year, the Highway Company had spent less than 31 percent of the sums earmarked for investments in infrastructure for the entire year, namely 340 million euros of the 1.1 billion euros included in the modified investment programme. As a matter of fact, investments that have been made are almost 3 percent smaller in RON than the sums that were spent on road infrastructure in the first half of last year. If the average inflation rate of around 7 percent is taken into consideration, investments in roads by CNADNR dropped approximately 10 percent in real terms in the first half of this year, despite the two budgetary adjustments already operated this year.
The government has set out to boost public investments by 40 percent for this year against 2005, but has so far achieved only a 4 percent increase. This year, the budget earmarked for investments is around 40 percent higher against 2005, but given the sums spent during the first half of this year, doubts have emerged as to the government's ability to accomplish this plan.
Investments paid with public funds last year amounted to 2.08 billion euros, about 10 percent lower than the state had initially set out to spend, due to the floods that prevented some public infrastructure projects from being run, as well as to the delays in major public works contracts.
In the first half of this year, the fields that carried out the smallest amount of investments against projected sums were education and transportations, namely key-segments where investments financed from the budget are viewed as a an absolute necessity.
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