On 18 May, Group for Legal and Political Studies (GLPS) organized a Press Conference on the topic: “Abuse with State Contingency Fund: An overview of government decisions in a year period”, held in Prishtina. During the conference, a Policy Note titled “Abuse of Public Funds: An overview of government decisions in a year period”, was presented by our Senior Research Fellow, Ms. Albana Rexha. Findings stemming from the report indicate that the Contingency Fund was used throughout 16 government decisions, spending 3,534,412,38 Euro out of 4,800,000 Euro that were totally planned, or 73.6 percent of the total contingency fund, during the period of January-December 2018. The amount is spent against Article 29 – Unforeseen Expenditures, under the Law on Public Finance Management and Responsibilities. In addition to law violations, from an economic perspective, this ad-hoc approach in allocating contingency funds seriously harms the Kosovo’s consolidate budget.

Based on report findings, GLPS proposes that:

-The government should not become an office which accepts individual requests for funds, but public money expenditure, in specific to contingency funds, should be done on the basis of criteria stipulated with the Law on Public Finance Management;

– The Ministry of Finance should remain the only institution that controls and manages the public funds;

– Public funds should be treated with integrity by public institutions, so that every citizen is treated equally and there is a non-discriminatory approach in relation to public funds;

– Annual budget planning should be effective, well-planned and based on criteria set from budgetary institutions in charge.

Venue: Orion Conference Centre, Str. Rexhep Luci, 10000 Prishtina, Kosovo