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Beblavy: No Money to Be Reimbursed for Social Enterprises by EC
Friday 19 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 19 (TASR) - The European Commission auditors suggest that no money spent on Slovakia's social enterprises are to be reimbursed, says the so-called draft of the December's audit of social enterprises.
The reason behind their stance is the unpermitted amount of state aid, as 95 percent of the start-up capital for the social enterprises was provided by the state, with EU originally set to reimburse 90 percent of the sum. "The aid for social enterprises is not in accordance with the policies on resources use. Therefore, it's recommended to abolish the financing of social enterprises altogether, and have all costs fully refunded back," says the draft.
The Finance Ministry has sent €11.3 million to accounts of the social enterprises so far, with majority of these resources allocated from the public budget. It was the same Ministry, however, which refused to certificate a majority of resources in July 2009, due to concerns over their legitimacy.
On July 22, the Finance Ministry sent a letter to the Labour Ministry, in which it warned about disturbing amounts of personal expenditures, duplicate spending and other incongruencies. Opposition SDKU-DS MP Miroslav Beblavy points out that the Finance Ministry was sending money to the social enterprises even months later after these findings.
The auditors warn that unpermitted state aid to the social enterprises might disrupt the economic competition. "These state contributions to selected companies deform economy. And that's what happened in case of pilot social enterprises," said Beblavy.
According to the EU rules, if the resources from the European funds are provided in contradiction with state aid policy, all money provided need to be reimbursed. "That's the reason why the audit ruled that all resources provided to the social enterprises have to be refunded - hence, €11.3 million will be paid by Slovak taxpayers," claimed Beblavy.
A spokesman of the Labour, Social Affairs and the Family Ministry points out that the draft in question doesn't represent the final version. The European Commission will draw up the final audit report after the Slovak Labour Ministry offers its comments on the draft.
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