No problems have appeared so far that would endanger the final deadline of launching routine operations of the state treasury project. The deadline has been set at January 1, 2004. Preparation of pilot technical infrastructure is currently being finalized so that the pilot project could be launched in February 2003. This information stems from the progress report of the state treasury project of December 31, 2002, okayed by the Slovak cabinet at its session on Wednesday.

Along with the state treasury project, a budgetary information system is being adapted to the needs of the treasury, and a communication-technological infrastructure is being completed to secure communication between the state treasury headquarters and clients anywhere in Slovakia.

Technical infrastructure of the treasury should be prepared by February, while system software and software for administration of the information system should be finished by October. The report reads that a safety project including risk analysis and supply of safety products should be completed by October as well. Until September, the supplier should gradually implement modules of management of debt, liquidity, expenditures, accounts handling, payment and settlement system, bookkeeping, financial planning and management of tangible and intangible assets.

The budget-run organization State Treasury will centralize revenues, expenditures, borrowing, and guarantees of the public sector, and thus enable the first real time overview of state finances on a daily basis. The state treasury should eliminate growth of hidden debts in the public sector and keep track of the public finance deficit in real time. Short-term surplus on a single account will be appreciated on the financial market through a servicing organization of the treasury – the Agency for Debt and Liquidity Management, which will originate along with the treasury. Roughly 2,500 subjects will join the system; however, budgets of towns and villages will not be included.

In early October 2002, former Finance Minister Frantisek Hajnovic and director general of Hewlett Packard Slovakia, s.r.o. Peter Weber signed the contract for the supply of the state treasury information system. The state treasury project worth SKK 1.28 billion (including VAT) is supposed to be implemented in the next 14 months. During this term, handling of the state accounts and realization of the state’s payment should be transferred from the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) to the state treasury. The state treasury project will by financed chiefly from the state budget, and partly from support funds from the European Union. Ex-President of Slovenska Sporitelna bank, Dusan Jurcak, became the director of the state treasury.