$88.8 Billion Allocated for Debt Repayment

The Government has allocated $88.84 billion in the 2018/19 Estimates of Expenditure, now before the House of Representatives, for debt repayment this year.

Of this sum, the lion’s share of $58.6 billion will go towards repaying Jamaican dollar benchmark investment notes issued under the Jamaica Debt Exchange/National Debt Exchange (JDX/NDX) initiatives.

The second largest provision of $17 billion is earmarked for partial redemption of Treasury Bills issued by the Administration, pursuant to the Treasury Bills Act, for short-term financing to meet temporary cash needs arising from fluctuations in revenue flows.

Another $11.33 billion has been set aside for contingency payments in relation to a) a liability management exercise that was executed, for which $10 billion is earmarked; and b) loans for principal payments that may arise out of the invocation of government guarantees on internal debt, for which $1.33 billion has been set aside.

A total of $111.4 million has been allocated for the repayment of promissory notes issued and loans raised from parastatal bodies.

These include reimbursement of taxes withheld on loan payments due to the National Insurance Fund (NIF) and other investments, payment to the National Housing Trust regarding Stadium Gardens and Jamaica Defence Force housing, and payment to the Development Bank of Jamaica and the PetroCaribe Development Fund for debt assumed on behalf of the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ).

A sum of $1.84 billion has been set aside for the repayment of loans raised from commercial banks to finance SCJ loans assumed by the Government.

Meanwhile, $250,000 will go towards the repayment of salary bonds in relation to outstanding public-sector salary claims.