Audit office gives budget bill high marks

Budapest, May 6 (MTI) – Hungary’s State Audit Office (ÁSZ) said macroeconomic projections and revenue targets in the government’s 2017 budget bill are achievable.

The bill complies with constitutional rules on state debt and — with a single exception — fiscal rules, ÁSZ said in an opinion on the draft legislation released on Friday.

ÁSZ said multiple reserves and the government’s expanded power to reallocate resources improve the security and flexibility of implementing the budget and the management of risk. The division of revenue and expenditures into categories affecting operations as well as state- and EU-funded investments makes the budget more transparent, it added.

ÁSZ said the revenue target is 99.9 percent “well-founded”.

ÁSZ said 5.6 billion of budget revenue is “at risk” and established that a number of spending items exceed the target by 62.7 billion forints. These can be covered by reserves, it added.

It noted that the target for the structural deficit is higher than the medium-term objective, which is inconsistent with achieving the mid-term fiscal deficit target. However, this does not pose risk to the implementation of the budget, ÁSZ added.

(HUF 100 = EUR 0.3196)

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters