The state keeps adding new powers to municipalities but this is not accompanied by providing the required funding, Most-Híd MP and Martin Mayor Andrej Hrnčiar said.
The phenomenon was exemplified in the government’s agreeing to a rise in salaries in public administration staff earlier this month while failing to allocate the necessary funds for the measure, he said. Such actions run contrary to the Act on Budgetary Responsibility, he added. As a result, if parliament gives the green light to the government-approved budget for 2014, Most-Híd will turn to the Constitutional Court, Hrnčiar said as quoted by the TASR newswire.
More than 4,500 powers and competencies have been transferred to municipalities, with more allocated each year, Hrnčiar said October 15. “It was 110 new competencies in 2012 alone that the state doesn’t cover (financially)," he said. “They (the municipalities) can’t even comply with tasks stipulated by the law.”
Most-Híd Chairman Béla Bugár chimed in by saying that the budget approved by the government is typical for pre-election time [elections are set for regions next month, MEP and presidential elections in the spring and municipalities later in 2014 - ed. note]. Bugár accuses Prime Minister Robert Fico of being campaign-oriented and lying, as he said he would not add to the tax burden for companies. The proposed new licence fee amounts to a new tax, Bugár said.
(Source: TASR)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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