Economy being deprived of much-needed liquidity by state

January dataon the execution of the state budget revealed that expenditure has again been held back excessively, while the state’s expired debts remained high at the end of 2017 as despite the payout forced by the country’s creditors, the state has continued to run up fresh ar- rears to taxpayers and suppliers.

Provisional figures from the Finance Ministry revealed yesterday that spending last month on the Public Investments Program did not even come to half that foreseen, amounting to just 83 million euros against a budgeted 175 million. Budget expenditure missed its target by 123 million euros, reaching 3.09 billion euros.

Revenues were much higher than planned last month, amounting to 4.78 billion, against 3.89 billion in the budget, or 891 million euros above target. Consequently the primary surplus amounted to 1.88 billion euros, compared to a target for 722 million.

State General Accounting Office data showed yesterday that the state’s outstanding payments to suppliers and tax rebates to taxpayers added up to 3.32 billion euros at end-December, down by just 500 million euros from three years earlier, even though the state paid off debts of 1.6 billion euros last year.

The overdue obligations of ministries, social security funds, hospitals, local authorities and other state entities amounted to 2.56 billion euros, down from 3.14 billion a month earlier, while outstanding tax rebates came to 765 million from 776 million euros at end-November.