PM: rejected budget requests cannot serve as reasons for resignation

  • 2012-07-04

Valdis Dombrovskis. Photo: Valsts Kanceleja.

RIGA - At the moment, budget requests from ministries exceed their potential limit and therefore their rejection cannot serve as a reason for any minister to resign, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis (Unity) told the LNT morning show "900 sekundes" this morning.

"No minister has planned to step down and the turned down requests will not serve as a reason for it," said Dombrovskis and added that it would be foolish to use such measures to achieve something.

As reported, even though the amount of additional financing from this year's budget has not been set, it is clear that budget requests from ministries are much more than can realistically be allocated, Dombrovskis told members of the press after yesterday's Cabinet meeting.

''The amount of additional financing from this year's budget has not been set yet, but could be approximately 60 to 89 million lats. It is clear that recent budget requests from various ministries cannot be realistically met,'' the prime minister said.

Dombrovskis said that the main topic on the next government meeting will be to evaluate the various budget requests from ministries, and decided how to allocate this additional financing from the national budget.

The Finance Ministry previously informed that the proposed budget amendments will be small, as the country's budget deficit cannot exceed 2.1 percent of GDP.

After several years of cost cutting during the economic crisis, this will be the first time that the budget will be amended to increase spending, instead of reducing spending.