Austerity at the end of the year in the public administration

The government will prohibit local administrations from organizing festivals and concerts with public money, except for those at the end of the year, and will suspend investments with funding from the state budget, according to a draft emergency ordinance, cited by Digi 24.

The draft normative act stipulates that public institutions can no longer conclude contracts to pay rent, for the purchase of office furniture or for consultancy, and that the organization of festivals, concerts, local competitions can no longer be paid from the state budget or local budgets , festivities, themed holidays. Excepted will be only the events occasioned by the days declared as official days of the cities, communes, as well as the expenses for the events occasioned at the end of the year. At the same time, it will no longer be possible to make investments from public money, except for those from European funds and from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, and spending on goods and services from November-December 2023 will remain at the level of those from January-September 2023. also, the Government postpones the payment of salary rights obtained in court for next year.

The draft emergency ordinance also establishes that institutions that spent less than 50% of the budget allocated for payments, will be obliged to return to the reserve fund 10% of the remaining money within 5 days at most from the date of the request.

The normative act would be approved in the government meeting that will take place these days. The measures are taken before the budget correction, where the new budget deficit target will also be passed. The deficit will increase from 4.4%, as predicted at the beginning of the year, to 5.5 - 5.7%, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said recently.