Are we going to the crisis: About 400,000 citizens can be left without pay after April 1st

About 400 thousand citizens can remain without income after April 1st. Another problem in which the country is introduced after the 6 October elections is that capital investments are completely blocked until budget approval, which have an economic impact, says in an interview for Kosovo Press, incumbent Finance Minister Fatmir Gashi.

According to him, in the event of not adopting the new budget law by the new government and Parliament, all payments, including salaries from security organs to civil service, pensions and other social assistances, public services, as well as all other budgetary obligations, will be cut off from February 28th, respectively, if there is a decision by Parliament.

Gashi in an interview for KosovoPress explains that on October 31st, 2019, he submitted the draft budget proposal to Government for 2020, but that he could not approve the budget bill and send it to the Assembly, as the latter had not been constitutionalised.

This government has no legitimacy with the new parliament. This parliament has elected and no laws in the Assembly can proceed. We still don't have parliamentary commissions, and without parliamentary commissions the assembly at the plenary hearings can't work... We don't even have the Board and Finance Commission. This situation does not give you an opportunity to move ahead with the budget. However, with regulation and Constitution it gives each MP the opportunity to propose the bill, but not the budget bill”, Gashi says.

Moreover, Gashi claims that the budget proposal can be addressed and prosecuted by the new government to the constitutional Assembly as organs released by the recent parliamentary elections.

Failure to adopt the budget, the biggest problem poses to Gashi the ban on all capital projects, which have negative implications directly in the private sector.

At this moment we cannot say we are in a budgetary crisis, but it doesn't mean we can't get into a budget crisis. With Article 24.2, Kosovo's Assembly must make a decision to press for March as well, so the Parliament can make the postponement and for a month of 1/12 for March. Under the condition that the Assembly makes the decision, by 31 March Kosovo will not be a budget crisis, but that does not mean it will be fine, because all new capital projects preceding 2020 cannot be executed. So, that's the most painful part... and most of all that hurts citizens and business”, Gashi stressed.

Deputy Prime Minister Gashi does not rule out the possibility of having a political agreement by parliamentary groups making a solution with the new budget, or the damage according to him may be unforeseen, until the state is threatened.

If the decision of the Parliament comes for March as well for1/12 of the budget law, with 1 April the budget closes completely from wages, from the security sector, KSF, AKI and all civilian servants. All budgetary organisations can receive no salaries, no expenses or subsidies. So completely blocked. This blockade could have enormous financial implications in Kosovo. There are about 84 thousand civil servants, and about 300 thousand of them are social schemes, which is that about 400,000 are left without income and the impacts are unforeseen, I can shake the foundations of this country that has formed for 20 years. For this reason responsibility falls on parties that have won the elections for the establishment of this government, or or to give way for someone else to form government”, Gashi said.

We remember, since elections held on October 6th of the year we left behind, VV and LDK are in constant efforts to achieve the ruling coalition, but without concrete results now for more than three months.