Funds intended for Jadranska banka will only be used in the worst-case scenario. If the rehabilitation succeeds, the state will show a smaller deficit, which could help save the rating and meet the criteria of the European Commission. On the other hand, such accounting juggling hides the large appetites of state spending.
If we take a closer look at this year’s budget and all its items, 1.65 billion kuna in expenditures of the State Agency for Deposit Insurance and Bank Rehabilitation (DAB) will catch the eye. In the Agency, which plans to rehabilitate Jadranska banka this year, they say that these funds have nothing to do with the budget, but why does it create the impression that a problematic bank will be rehabilitated with taxpayer money? The problem lies in the classification of funds from the Deposit Insurance Fund (FOD), explains the director of the Agency, Marija Hrebac, for Lider. The funds with which DAB pays insured deposits and rehabilitates banks are not disbursed from the budget and have nothing to do with it. These funds are paid by banks, which must bear all costs of deposit insurance and bank rehabilitation. However, according to the disputed classification, the budget interprets them as revenues and expenditures of DAB.
The question remains why this money is accounted for through state finances due to incorrect statistical classification, unnecessarily increasing or decreasing the general government deficit, which significantly affects the consolidated public debt.
