SAPARD 2006 payments may be spent by end-2009

The European funds assigned under the SAPARD programme in 2006 may be spent by the end of 2009, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Dacian Ciolos told Agerpres on Thursday.

‘Romania has obtained the extension by one year of the funds allotted through SAPARD for 2006, with the European commissioner for agriculture assenting Romania’s request’, Ciolos said, adding the money should have been absorbed by end-2008.

The funds earmarked for 2006 total some 150 million euros.

The SAPARD payments to Romania were halted in this summer, after an auditing mission of the European Union executive in early June found problems in the management and control system related to the authorisation of payments to the SAPARD funds beneficiaries.

The auditing mission signalled certain shortcomings in the control and management system of the Payment Agency on Rural Development and Fisheries, that manages the SAPARD funds in Romania.

The European Commission told the Romanian authorities they should draft a measure plan to remedy such shortcomings, while it temporarily suspended processing the 28.3 million-euro payment application previously submitted under the SAPARD programme. There were 582 authorised applications for payment in the system at that date totalling 62 million euros. Up until now, the money paid from the national budget amounts to roughly 128 million euros.

At an early stage, the payments were made from the national budget, while the European Commission re-paid the money only after Romania submitted the payment declarations and the confirmation of the foreign auditor of the National Fund with the Ministry of Economy and Finance that the action plan meant to repair the shortcomings at the Romanian Payment Agency had been implemented. AGERPRES