Ministers fight for pieces of budget pie

Latvian Cabinet ministers have been at each others throats over the apportioning of the state budget for 2003 which is due to be approved by year's end.

The aim, according to Prime Minister Einars Repse, is to cut spending in each ministry by 1.7 percent.

The savings are needed to finance a cut in corporate tax rates and to cover the cost of dividing the health and welfare portfolios into two separate ministries.

In addition a new Social Integration Ministry to be headed by former human rights campaigner Nils Muiznieks is to be created.

Other expenses include a campaign to persuade the population to vote "yes" to joining the EU at a referendum which is expected to take place in the autumn of 2003.

Repse has also vowed to make good on a pre-election pledge to raise the salaries of police and judges as part of his anti-corruption efforts.

Several projects for the rehabilitation of young drug addicts now look endangered and child benefits may rise by 5 lats (8.3 million euros) rather than the 6 lats originally planned, Welfare Minister Dagnija Stake complained.

"It defies belief - the idea of reducing spending on rehabilitation of drug-addicted children and child benefit payments," Stake said.

Stake's comments were echoed by Arsija Lunga, head of the finance and economics department at the Culture Ministry, which is also in Repse's firing line.

"We can barely manage a 0.8 percent cut - any more will mean closing or shrinking existing institutions," complained Lunga.

Projects such as the national folk song festival, a proposed new national library building and new theaters are hanging in the balance, Lunga said.

Weeks after appointing Muiznieks as Latvia's first ever social integration minister, Repse suggested the Welfare Ministry might have to take precedence over Muiznieks' request for a 408,000 lat budget.

"Our responsibility is to care about our children and families by any means necessary," Repse said.

The prime minister may be mindful of the threat of further strike action by medical workers of the kind seen earlier this year.

The medical workers' union this week demanded an increase in the standard nurse's salary to 120 lats per month and an increase in the standard doctor's salary to 180 lats per month, together with a reduction in the length of the working week from 40 hours to 38.5 hours.

The state's spending on medical care should equal at least 7 percent of the state budget, the union said.