Former prime minister and head of the SMER-SD party, Robert Fico, has said that the statements made by finance minister Ivan Miklos about a growing deficit are just a way of trying to draw attention away from main issues.
Fico said this in reaction to Miklos, who blamed the former government of Fico for the current state of public finances.
Miklos earlier stated that the public finances were in a state of decline thanks to the overspending and stealing of the former government, while also accusing former finance minister Jan Pociatek (Smer-SD) of lying about the true condition of the budget. Miklos said that the quoted deficit did not contain certain entries like financial aid for state companies in the red, this accounting for 0.6% of the GDP in 2009.
For those reasons, the deficit came to 8% of GDP last year and is projected at 7.8% in 2010, said minister Miklos. “Detailed analyses that we made show that the public finance deficits in 2009 and 2010 are much worse than the former government of Robert Fico declared before the elections,” claimed Miklos.
Fico retorted that Miklos’ accusations were false and it was the current government that should be blamed for the bad management of the country’s finances. “It’s their government that has expenses exceeding the budget and which is increasing the deficit”, He then accused the current government of setting the stage for privatisation of state assets cheap.