President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said debts with the state budget had risen significantly at the end of 2020 compared to the beginning of the year.
On February 10, the President of Turkmenistan held a meeting on the economic development issues. The Turkmen leader expressed dissatisfaction with the on-going work in the financial and economic sectors. Minister of Finance and Economy Muhammetgeldi Serdarov was severely reprimanded, the Turkmenistan Today News Agency reports.
The President said debts with the state budget had risen significantly at the end of 2020 compared to the beginning of the year. Weak control over the settlement of accounts had led to large debts to the contractors who had performed work under the National Rural Development Programme, the President said. The Turkmen leader dwelt on the slow pace of construction of new villages in the etraps.
Since 2015, several construction projects have been abandoned, and intersectoral debts have risen to about 12 billion manats (about US$ 3.4 billion). The Ministry of Finance and Economy was not devoting due attention to the development of the private sector and privatization of state property, the President said.
The President said Serdarov had not come up with any initiatives to solve the above problems. The Turkmen leader gave the Minister a severe reprimand with the last warning, noting that the Minister would be fired at the end of the first half of the year if he failed to solve the problems.
