From this amount, 440 million euro is planned for debt payments, financing the budget and making backups, while 500 million euro is planned for emission in the shape of bonds to refinance the existing debt of the country which should be paid in the next two years.
For rebalancing the budget, 70 million euros will be provided for the purchase of shares which Italian partner A2A owns in the Electro company of Montenegro (EPCG) and 6,5 million euro for the repayment of debt made by the National airline company Montenegro Airlines and Montenegrin coastline.
The Minister of Finance Darko Radunovic said that they proposed the amendments to the budget to make assumptions for the state to own two-thirds of the Electro company and to create more significant national finances.
“Amendments are also necessary because of the opportunity to refinance a part of the public debt by the emission of Euro-bonds which would enable collecting the funds of 500 million euro," said Radunovic
The delegate from the opposition, Aleksandar Damjanovic, asked what is new with making these amendments, i.e. what we didn’t know two and a half months ago concerning A2A and the refinancing of bonds.
“You are speaking about the increase in profit, but it has always been underestimated due to the grey economy; therefore we should not search for the public debt’s recovery opportunity there. The level of the grey economy is very high," said Damjanovic.
The Minister of Economy Dragica Sekulic said that the Government will accelerate the purchase of EPCG shares from the Italian company A2A and that they intend to do it in two years. She announced that they would submit a new contract to the parliament on a road option with A2A.
Delegates from the ruling DPS party participating in the discussion have been reading, as per a standard routine, content from explanations of the budget which are already known to the public.
It was planned that the government could have a loan up to 296 million euro with the valid Law for paying off the debts, financing the budget and making back-ups, and now this figure is increased to 440 million euro, which is the difference of 144 million euro.
This critical fact that 144 million euro can be taken "from the citizens’ pockets” was not spoken about in the Government’s announcement after the session when the proposition for the budget amendments was approved, or in the video message submitted to the press which included the statement by the vice president of the Government for economic politics, the financial system Milutin Simovic and Minister of Finance Darko Radunovic.
The delegates from DF were not present in the discussions about the budget amendments because they decided to leave the parliament because their delegate Milan Knezevic needed to serve his prison sentence for four months.
Text by Marija Mirjacic, on March 19th 2018, read more at Vijesti
