EU resources closed a record year: HUF 250 billion paid out during the last one month16 January 2013
The use of the resources of the New Széchenyi Plan (NSZP) has been significantly accelerated in the second half of 2012 due to the decisions of the National Development Governmental Committee (NDGC) established under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the more efficient operation of the institutional system for development policy. During the last one month the National Development Agency (NDA) paid out nearly HUF 250 billion. This record achievement also proves that the NDA can perform the payments efficiently and in accordance with the requirements. During the 2007-2013 programming period Hungary has already paid out more than HUF 3,300 billion in development resources to beneficiaries and out of this only this year HUF 1,052 billion was paid out.
Analysing this year’s result exceeding HUF 1000 billion it is clear that the payment of support shows an increasing tendency in a weekly/monthly breakdown. Only last week the NDA paid out more that HUF 70 billion to beneficiaries in the framework of the New Széchenyi Plan. “If the adequate amount of invoices is submitted the institutional system has proved to be able to achieve the targets set. Moreover, based on the present efficiency even in two years, by the turning of 2014/2015 – that is one year before the end of the payment period of the programming period – the country can achieve the 100% resource absorption rate” – Zoltán Petykó, President of the National Development Agency commented on the mid-December results.
As a result of the intense work in 2012 the institutional system handled at least one submitted tender every 5 minutes.
The fact that this year new EU supported calls for tenders were announced in the average value of HUF 4 billion daily in the framework of the New Széchenyi Plan. During the last one month the NDA paid out nearly HUF 250 billion to beneficiaries. Broken down to working hours this means the payment of HUF 1.5 billion per hour.
It has been experienced during the use of the EU development resources that raising the own resources for the tenders often presented the municipalities and budgetary institutions with an inextricable challenge. Therefore, as of October 2012 the Government established a new Own Resources Fund for EU support with a budget of HUF 30 billion, from which budgetary institutions and municipalities with EU supported project contracts can request support for their own resources. At the establishment of the Fund it was an important objective that the support should be claimed easily and in the event of an approving decision the NDA should pay out the repayable or non-repayable own resources part and the support content of the invoice at the same time.
Besides the administrative simplifications the year-end payout record is also due to the success of the Own Resources Fund. This is also justified by the fact that the decisions about HUF 12 billion own resources support have already been made, which can result in the payout of invoices in the amount of HUF 60 billion in the system and expected to lead to further acceleration in the payout. The remaining HUF 18 billion resources can be used until the budget is depleted or at the latest until 30 June next year.
The acceleration of the implementation of EU projects is also facilitated by the fact that during the year the NDA introduced the opportunity for requesting advances to suppliers for projects implemented in the public sector. The amount of the advance has been set forth by the legal regulation at 30% of the eligible costs of the contract concluded with the main contractor. The amount of advance payments to suppliers has increased significantly. So far 170 public procurement contracts were affected by this option in the total value of HUF 273 billion, 30% of which i.e. HUF 82 billion was constituted by advances to suppliers.
To draw up a balance about the past period of the Hungarian support system: “the acceleration of decision-making, the improvement of the financing position of beneficiary groups in a difficult situation and the dramatic increase of the payout volume has been seen.” – Zoltán Petykó, the President of the NDA pointed out.