By: Spletni časopis
“Various budget users are reallocating spending rights to the Ministry of Finance to provide funds to municipalities for reimbursement of winter bonus payments in the total amount of 9.4 million.”
This was how the public was informed about the third consecutive reallocation of money, because municipalities had not planned funds for winter bonuses, forcing the government to provide them, even though the government itself does not have this money in its budget, since it never proposed it to parliament. Previously, we were told that similar reallocations had been made for municipalities: first 12.4 million euros, and second about nine million euros.
For the public sector, the government is reallocating around 120 million euros for some 188,000 of its employees. Altogether, more than 600 million euros will be paid this month to nearly one million employees in the country. Another 90 million goes to pensioners, who receive a much smaller winter allowance.
It is no secret that the absence of winter bonus funds in budget plans was not an oversight. That it was pre‑election vote‑buying was admitted last week by the prime minister at a party for Ljubljana municipal employees with mayor Zoran Janković, when he publicly reminded them to be grateful and urged them to go vote for him, because: “The other guy will take it away if you don’t go to the polls.”
He was speaking about the Christmas bonus, although the Christmas bonus is a different instrument that is also paid out.
How Golob and Janković might cooperate in a joint pre‑election project is also suggested by the unusual invitation involving Nataša Pirc Musar, Urška Klakočar Zupančič, and Robert Golob, very likely a joke, but one that shows where we are heading.
Bojan Požar also published the real version, in which Janković is missing. After the joint appearance before municipal employees, almost anything seems possible. From the “big three” of supposed friends, only Milan Kučan is missing, who at least had some role in independence.
We are witnessing, and will continue to witness, a series of reallocations to find money for bonuses that are not in the state budget, but must be paid by everyone, otherwise fines follow. Money is being diverted from budget lines where parliament had authorised spending for entirely different purposes.
In addition to funds for municipalities, the Ministry of Labour reallocated 538,000 euros for reimbursement of winter bonuses for employees at the Pension and Disability Insurance Institute of Slovenia. The Ministry for a Solidarity‑Based Future reallocated 1.2 million euros for employees in training institutes and homes for the elderly, and 252,000 euros for winter bonuses for employees in childcare centres. The Ministry of Health reallocated another 1.4 million euros for winter bonuses for indirect budget users.
