Ion Chicu: State Budget Revenues Halved

The financial resources of the Republic of Moldova are on the verge of exhaustion. Prime Minister Ion Chicu said that pensions and salaries are currently paid out of the money collected by the Customs Service during the first two months of the year and transfers from the International Monetary Fund, ipn.md says. “Since March 17, state budget revenues have cut in half. At present, we can pay pensions, salaries solely from what we collected additionally in the first two months of six months. In the first two months of the year, the Customs Service contributed 27% more to the state budget than in the same period last year, we survive with these resources. We do not print money. We live on what we collect,” Ion Chicu said during the Glavnyi Vopros (“The Main Question”) program on NTV Moldova. The Prime Minister said that Moldova is not the country that issues the currency, and the printing of Moldovan Lei will not save the situation. “Our state is not an issuer of currencies. We do not issue euros and dollars for launching as much currency on the market as we want, so that later some will change it based on our exchange rate. If we massively produce lei, this means inflation, and pensioners with 1,500-2,000 lei will not be able to buy bread. We will not allow this. It makes no sense to print money. From the fact that you have 2,000 or 10,000 in your pocket, but you can only buy one bread, nothing changes,” the prime minister said. The Head of the Cabinet of Ministers reports that due to the pandemic, the state budget revenues have significantly decreased, and our white hope is a 4-billion lei loan from the IMF. “At present, we live from the money that we have raised on our own. The only transfer we received was made at the beginning of the year from the International Monetary Fund in the amount of $ 20 million. We collected this money in the first two months of the year, it was used to pay salaries for April, a little is left for May. On April 17, a meeting of the International Monetary Fund will be held, at which a loan of 4 billion lei should be approved. Money will be allocated until the end of April,” Ion Chicu said. The Prime Minister says that Moldova cannot buy masks and distribute it among the population for free. He clarifies that the budget situation is bad. “Masks in Moldova are bought for the medical system, for all institutions, the police. The state cannot buy masks in order to provide and give them to citizens for free. We are in a financial, budgetary situation when we cannot buy and offer free masks. There is no such possibility, and this must be understood.”