According to the sources, authorities will direct funds from VAT collections to the project, a procedure also used by the former Cabinet.
The Government will also decide on increasing the budgets of the ministries of Education, Regional Development and the High Court of Justice, using money from the budget reserve fund.
Last week, the Government directed money from the reserve fund to local authorities to co-finance EU-funded projects and pay arrears. The largest amounts of money were granted to county councils and town halls led by representatives of ruling coalition parties, mainly to the Democratic Liberal Party.
To be able to allot more money for local authorities, the Government has recently made changes to several laws and introduced certain exceptions, suspending until the end of the year the rule whereby mayors can receive money from the reserve fund only if they have reduced their debts.
Usually, the Government is allowed to transfer money from the reserve fund to local authorities only if their debts at the end of the preceding year were lower than in the year before that. Through an emergency ordinance adopted last week, the Government has decided to suspend this rule until December 31, 2012, enabling new money transfers all through the year.
The Government also introduced an exception from the law on public finance, allowing it to earmark more funds from the reserve and pay the local authorities’ arrears. This law says only urgent or unforeseen expenses may be covered from the reserve fund.
Thanks to the ordinance, the Government was able to adopt a decision allotting a total of 648 million lei (EUR148 million) from the reserve fund to the local authorities.
Two weeks ago, people close to the matter told MEDIAFAX that Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu left the ruling coalition’s meeting on Monday in anger over certain party leaders’ demands for funds to be directed to a number of constituencies, in exchange for their support of the Government’s bills in Parliament.
Earlier last week, Government spokesman Dan Suciu said the prime minister had persuaded the coalition to accept that funds would be distributed to the local authorities in order to co-finance EU-funded projects and to pay their arrears. (EUR1=RON4.3696)