Salaries for approximately 20,000 officials employed in 17 ministries have not yet been paid as the transition to the new payroll calculation system, known as the Centralized Payroll Calculation (COP), is underway, and there are sufficient funds in the state treasury for this, stated today Miljenko Fičor, Assistant Minister of Finance and Chief State Treasurer.
The entire state administration is transitioning to COP, with ministries being the first in line, and from March 1, all other budget users will follow. Given that the testing of the new system is in its final phase, salaries for employees in the ministries are slightly delayed but will be paid soon, as early as next week, announced Fičor.
The Ministry of Finance has already enabled today, instead of Monday, the payment of salaries to educators and healthcare personnel, as well as pensions to retirees, making it clear that there is no lack of money in the state treasury, emphasizes the Chief Treasurer.
Fičor also presented preliminary data on the budget deficit for January, which shows that the deficit in the first month amounted to 2.6 billion kuna, which is 1.2 billion kuna more than in the same month last year.
Such an increase in the deficit is not concerning as some expenditures this year were paid earlier than planned, meaning some of them would normally be paid in February, says Fičor. Subsidies for agriculture, medicines to wholesalers, incentives for housing savings banks and pension funds, as well as funds for decentralized functions to local government have been paid out.
