Government payments in Kosovo cut until budget approval

To enable division from the budget, based on legal procedures, if the budget is not approved, the Parliament, by a decision, could authorise continued implementation of the Law for last year's budgetary divisions of fiscal last year.

Lulzim Rafuna, adviser to the Kosovo government's Finance Minister, told Radio Free Europe that demands have been made in the Parliament for budgetary extension, so that there will be no cuts in payments.

The Kosovo Government's proposal on this issue will be considered Saturday in the Kosovo Assembly, where the draft budget for 2019 is expected to be considered and adopted.

Under the Public Finance Management Law, Rafuna said they had only been eligible until January 31st to become budgetary sharing, and that they are now waiting for the decision to allow budgetary division to be passed at Saturday's session or vote on the draft budget 2019.

We have no pending payment actually for today. If the decision is voted on Saturday, then it comes into force on Monday and presents no obstacle to making payments. We, in time, have managed to execute on Friday all salaries for all the servants who receive from the state budget”, Rafuna said.

If the decision is not voted, Rafuna said the Finance Ministry cannot act illegally without having the authorization or budget approved.

Kosovo entered in 2019 without the budget approved by the Parliament. Kosovo's budget, according to the current design, is envisioned to be 2.3 billion euros and, as such, has been adopted in principle in the Kosovo Assembly in December last year.