The Ministry of Finance is still receiving savings plans that ministers must prepare at the behest of the Prime Minister. Finance Minister Ivan Šuker does not yet want to disclose exact figures, but there will certainly be retests. Tomorrow, discussions will take place with three more ministries, and it is exclusively about cutting operational costs, said Minister Šuker, who is also the chief coordinator of the working group for the budget rebalancing.
Unofficially, we learn that the Government plans to save more than 2 billion kuna by cutting costs across ministries. The cost-cutting primarily involves so-called material costs, and there is currently no consideration of reducing subsidies and capital investments. The Ministry of Defense plans to save around 500 million kuna, the Ministry of Transport around 400 million kuna, and the Ministry of the Interior 150 million kuna. The Ministry of Tourism has indicated that the plan is to save about 2 percent or around 4.8 million kuna from the total budget of that sector, which amounts to 243 million kuna for this year.
The savings will, as reported, primarily relate to material and office costs, while there will be no savings on development and incentive programs or tourism promotion. According to the Prime Minister’s directive, ministries were to submit their savings proposals by the end of the day. Vice President Damir Polančec believes that the budget cannot be balanced without new sources of revenue. This will require increasing excise duties on petroleum products, which could bring the state one billion kuna by the end of the year. If excise duties on mobile telephony were introduced, Polančec believes the state would receive an additional 1.2 billion kuna annually.
