Verheijen: Serbia has at best 9 months for reforms

BELGRADE - Serbia has 9 months to conduct reforms, World Bank Country Manager for Serbia Tony Verheijen has said, adding that it is very important to protect political credibility.

The World Bank said in June 2013 Serbia was not in immediate danger of bankruptcy in the next 6-12 months, he noted. It has been 9 months, but more time was bought with the budget review, so Serbia again has 6-9 months ofr reforms, he told the Belgrade based daily Politika.

If the reforms are not conducted in that time, no one will believe anymore that they will happen at all, he stressed.

It is very dangers to lose political credibility, he stated, adding that if the government agreed on a programme with the World Bank and the IMF and then failed to imlement it within 9 months, he would not be able defend the country before World Bank directors.

The reform of the pension system in Serbia requires deeper analysis that has not been completed yet, and the World Bank did not advise Serbia to reduce salaries across the public sector, but to remove abuses within the system, he noted.

The baseline for those salaries, of which there are now 8, should be equalized so that all those who do one type of job get the same salary, he explained.

There are no funds in the 2014 budget that were planned to be used on subsidies for companies undergoing restructuring, but those companies are still an expense for the government because they do not pay taxes, so the funds are paid from the budget, Verheijen remarked.

However, the budget does have funds set aside for severance pays in case those companies go bankrupt, so it is important to settle that issue as soon as possible, before the money is used for something else, he pointed...