The gross debt per capita in Slovakia increased by more than a thousand euro between 2006 and 2009, with the Ministry of Finance expecting a further increase by EUR 1,000 this year.
“This means that every citizen, including children and pensioners, will have public debt of around EUR 5,000,” said Ministry of Finance spokesman Martin Jaros. He put the rising debt down to the “mismanagement” of the previous government, which is why the present government has been forced to adopt austerity measures to reduce the debt.
The statement is being seen as the Ministry of Finance’s reaction to a comment made earlier this week on Tuesday by former finance minister Jan Pociatek (SMER-SD), who claimed that the most recent forecast of the Ministry of Finance on economic growth of four percent for this year proved that finance minister Ivan Miklos (SDKU-DS) was lying when he compared the Slovakia’s economy to that of Greece.
Spokesman Jaros declared: “The finance minister never claimed that the Slovak economy is going bankrupt like the Greek one. He did point out, though, that the public finance deficit is increasing to the level of Greece; in 2009 it came to 8% of GDP and this year it will be just slightly less. Ján Počiatek, who served as finance minister for four years, should know this difference”.