Bucharest municipality will default on its debt unless it gives up all planned investments and cuts financing for unnecessary programs initiated over the past years, warned MP Nicusor Dan, one of the founders of Save Bucharest NGO.

He claims that, whereas the revenues to the budget of the municipality were around RON 4 billion (EUR 890 mln) per year in 2016-2018, the city earmarked RON 7 billion (EUR 1.49 bln) of expenditures this year. There are RON 3 billion (EUR 630 million) missing, he concluded, according to local Agerpres.

The problems already surfaced, he argued, pointing to the payments the municipality should have made to the heating supplier Elcen, municipal sports club or for the promised start-up grants program. The municipality should severely cut unnecessary expenditures since the deferred payments reflect structural deficits and not temporary cash flow problems, Dan concluded.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/Nicusor Dan)