Public finance

Serbia’s public finances are sound in their totals and within the fiscal rules. What is harder to see is what the money achieves. The state invests far more of its budget than European governments do, but projects are chosen without a single list or published appraisals, and many of the largest are contracted outside ordinary tenders. Pay is set by yearly raises for each sector rather than by the value of the work. For a ministry and for a supplier the question is the same: not how much the state spends, but how it decides what to spend on, and on what terms.

Public money follows inputs and projects more than purposes. Programme targets rarely shape the next year’s allocations, and projects of special importance run outside the regular rules for appraisal and contracting. In open tenders competition is thin and price alone usually decides, so public demand rarely rewards quality or brings new firms in. The cost shows not in the totals but in the services: infrastructure finished late or over cost, and school building programmes that spend far below plan. Pay matters as much: raises set sector by sector and a compressed scale make it hard to keep engineers, doctors, IT staff and experienced managers, the people who deliver services and run projects. The question for policy is how to tie each dinar to a purpose and show what it achieved: one pipeline for all public investment, tenders that draw more bidders and reward quality, targets that inform budget choices, and pay that follows the value of a job within the fiscal rule.

We work with the budget at every level, from general government to municipal accounts, and cost reforms year by year and job by job; our work for companies shows how the same budget looks from the other side of a tender.

The state is the largest investor and the largest buyer in the country, and its demand is formed well before a tender appears: in budget programmes, project annexes, municipal budgets and technical specifications. Much of public contract value is awarded outside ordinary tenders, mostly for transport under intergovernmental agreements or special laws, so domestic firms reach it as subcontractors and suppliers to the main contractors. In open tenders competition is thin and price usually decides, which leaves room for a better offer. Payers differ, and some state companies and municipalities pay late. The suppliers that do well read demand early, position themselves with the main contractors, bid where tenders draw a single offer and weigh each payer’s record.

We read where the state will spend before the tender, from budget programmes and project lists down to contract awards, and know how the money moves through the budget from plan to payment.