Belgium slow to pay its bills

Paying bills on time is a must for all of us, whether we like it or not. However, new figures show that the Belgian state itself, which should be the example to follow, fails to pay a quarter of its bills on time. In fact, last year Belgium paid more than 75,000 bills after the deadline, which account for 300 million euros. The ministries of health and justice were most often late in paying, while defence and science policy ministries had the best track records.

As high as the figure may seem, last year was an improvement over 2012 when 180,000 bills were paid late, accounting for 2.2 billion euros.

According to the figures, the average bill was paid seven days late, while a quarter went unpaid within 27 days of the deadline. As of the end of last year there were still 2,460 invoices outstanding.