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BNB
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Money down due to debt payments, Easter bonuses for pensioners and energy subsidies
A dispute over money in the fiscal reserve erupted in absentia over the weekend between budget committee chairman Lubomir Karimanski and deputy prime minister and finance minister Asen Vassilev.
Only a day after the failed attempt to elect him BNB governor, Karimanski wrote a post in which he showed BNB data on the fiscal reserve, accompanied by a short text: BNB in less than a month and a half (25.02.22 – 8.04.2022) !? Just the facts! ”
In order to be clear to non-specialists, he fenced the numbers in the column “Liabilities to government and budget organizations”, which as of February 25 show an amount of over BGN 9 billion, and as of April 8 – BGN 4.7 billion. Prime Minister Kiril Petkov reacted. He told reporters in Bitola: “We have a clear budget, clear costs,
everything is
transparent
There should be no surprises for anyone. We are going according to plan, according to budget, we have not gone anywhere beyond any limits. In order to finance the deficit – it is a matter of the right time, the right markets, the right interest rates, I leave it to the Minister of Finance to decide, “said the Prime Minister.
The press center of the Ministry of Finance explained that the reserve has decreased after the payment of old debt, the Easter bonuses have been paid to all over 2 million pensioners and the energy aid to the poorest has been paid. The forecast of Asen Vassilev’s experts is that within a week the reserve will rise again to BGN 8.2 billion.
A detailed reading of the BNB data shows that the most significant and sharp decline in the reserve money was during the week of March 18-25, when it eased by nearly 2.54 billion. BGN and falls to 6.49 billion. The reason is the payments on our external debt. The Ministry of Finance officially announced that for the payment of interest and principal on seven-year Eurobonds with a maturity of 1.275 billion paid. euro, another 46.95 million euros on the interest on Eurobonds – seven and twenty years old, issued in 2016. The initial plan was to cover this cost by the two lev issues of BGN 500 million each, paid before the repayments, as well as by the repaid loan of BGN 1 billion. BGN, granted to NEK. As is known, one of the two issues was postponed due to low investor interest. Probably the loan from NEK was not available as of the date of payment of the debt, which necessitated the use of amounts from the reserve.
An extraordinary expense for the budget is the BGN 70 for each of the more than 2 million pensioners who have already been credited to their accounts. Energy subsidies for the poorest are a regular expense that has been imposed on payments.
By law, the money in the fiscal reserve must not fall below BGN 4.5 billion at the end of each financial year. The current government will take power in December 2021, when
in the fiscal
there was a reserve
10.41 billion BGN
It was created as an additional buffer for the stability of the currency board and has existed for over 25 years as government reserves. Its minimum value is determined in the State Budget Act and is detected at the end of the year and should not be lower than the amount of individual extra-budgetary funds that are part of its structure and whose purpose is targeted, ie. their money cannot be used freely by the government. These are the Silver Fund, where the reserve money for pensions is kept, the Kozloduy NPP Fund and the Teachers’ Fund.
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