20th February 2020, Skopje – As of today, citizens have the opportunity to get informed about the public debt through the new transparency tool javendolg.open.finance.gov.mk, prepared by the Ministry of Finance with support by IRI and USAID. Debt, its trends by years, repayment, disbusremnts for 2020 and the manner of its financing are thoroughly peresnted thereon. During the public presentation of the platform, Minsiter of Finance Nina Angelovska point out that citizens, though overall fiscal transparency, will be able to recognize the incomplete and fake news, being abused for political gain.
– I strongly strive for fiscal transparency and education of taxpayers and citizens about the public finance, key budget documents, which I believe is especially important for young Democrats like us. Regardless of the economic knowledge of the citizens, the data are presented and systematized in a simple and understandable way, in order to be clear to the general public. By having such easily comprehensible presentation of the public debt data, we believe that we will contribute to reducing the delusions with respect to the ndebtedness, the public debt level and sustainability, thus also contributing to financial education of the broader public – said Minister Angelovska.
Platform comprise five parts: public debt and its components, debt trends by years, public debt financing in 2020, securities issuance, and education.
The site provides data on funds to be disbusrsed on the domestic and foreign markets during 2020, as well as that old and foreign debts of more than EUR 700 million, should be repaid.
In order to increase the fiscal transparency, previously unpublished data, such as the debt of public companies for each of them separately, as well as the expected borrowing and the repayment by the enterprises in 2020, are published on this platform.
Moreover, the debt financing instruments – government securities and eurobonds are thoroughly explained therein.
– During the past period, as for each auction, there is news that the country borrowed certain amount. The next day, when we are repaying previously issued government securities, this is not conveyed, while the realsictic information about the net debt from the auction is the difference between the disbursed amount and the amount that should be repaid. That is the amount we issued minus the amount we repaid the next day or any of the following days. Furthermore, government securities have now historically the lowest interest rate, being one of the cheapest sources for financing the budget deficit – Angelovska said and pointed out that the interest rate on 12-month treasutry bills now accounts for 0.5%, while previsouly accounting for 8%.
Data are provided, pertaining to all so-far issued Eurobonds having the same both amount and interest rate as when they fall due to be repaid.
-If we click on the Eurobond repayments we have all the bonds as they fell due or are falling due to be repaid. As you can see, this year, the Eurobonds totaling one billion and 628 million euros, fall due to be repaid in 2021, 2023 and 2025 – Angelovska said.
She stressed that this tool may alsoe be used for the purpse of financial eductaion since it comprises many analytical components.
-To address the young, the students – LEARN, ANALYZE, research … you have all data you need to prepare papers and graduate papers, check everything that is being presented to you, judge for yourself what is populism, and what is the genuine strive and desire to work and perform and to carry all this through. Check everything and read what trutful is, as well as what is populistically twisted or fake news. My attitude is pragmatic and we have lot of problems to resolve and we all need to focus on solving them, so we do not have time for populism – Angelovska said.
The platform is available in Macedonian, English and Albanian language, and it will be updated on a monthly and quarterly basis, according to the publication of various categories of data. Anyway, this is the third transparency tool launched by the Ministry of Finance in the last half a year, upon “Open Finances” and “Execution of Capital Expenditures by Budget Users”.
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