Tiraspol, 28 March. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. The committee on economic policy, budget and finance has again considered amendments to the main financial document. The 2016 budget was adopted by the Supreme Council on first reading on 2 March. Now it is being elaborated for the second reading.
Following the committee's meeting the minister of finance, Irina Molokanova, noted that some amendments increasing the revenues of the Social Stabilisation Fund are unfeasible, which is why financing social protection items in full will lack funds.
«The statements that we have enough funds to cover all social protection items are not true for a number of reasons. We tell MPs that the Social Stabilising Fund may simply fall short of some revenues," underscored Irina Molokanova.
The committee also discussed amendments providing for the withdrawal of state guarantees granted by the PRB to the Bank of Agricultural Development. This provision has existed in the law on republican budget since 2011. The state contracts liabilities to repay loans issued by the bank to the country's agricultural companies in the event they fail to.
Some lawmakers disagreed to this amendment, noting that this decision may adversely affect the development of the whole agricultural complex. However, the committee determined to introduce this amendment to the draft budget.
Lawmakers made decision to annul professional extra payments for foreign ministry employees, provided for by the law on public sector salary. At the same time, they chose to retain full volume bonuses for retiring judges. It is recalled that it was earlier supposed to limit judges' retirement bonus to five monetary allowances.
There was much discussion on an amendment providing for the conduct of tenders for all types of road works. According to the authors of the bill, this will promote the optimisation of costs. However, this initiative failed to gain a unanimous support.
According to Alexander Korshunov, it may affect both the quality and terms of works.
Representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and state administrations, invited to the committee's meeting, spoke about negative implications this decision may entail. In particular, they said, the very existence of the road facilities sector may be brought into question. Today road repair works are carried out by municipal and state-run enterprises.
«If a state-run company fails to win a tender, it will stop and have to dismiss several hundreds of people," said a representative of the Bendery State Administration.
However, this amendment was also recommended for the approval at the parliament's session. A plenary session, at which the budget will be considered, is scheduled for the nearest Wednesday.
