Budget Same as Last Year in Nominal Terms – Finance Minister

Minister of Finance and Planning, Dr. Omar Davies emphasized yesterday (April 12), that the Government has presented a budget, which called for expenditure to be the same in nominal terms as the previous fiscal year. This, he said, represented a cut in real terms, which was “virtually unheard of.” Dr. Davies was opening the 2007/08 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives.
“What we have benefited from is the sharp reduction in debt servicing requirements. This has allowed us to allocate additional resources to complete critical capital projects,” he explained.
The Minister stressed that the government had not shied away from discussing the challenges which it faced in the medium term.
“I have outlined some and I wish to reiterate that the administration, whilst willing to involve all stakeholders in discussing the challenges – in particular, the Opposition – will not resile from taking the lead on important issues,” he stated. For the 2007/08 Fiscal Year, the Government has presented a budget of $380.36 billion for its Recurrent (house-keeping) and Capital (development) expenses.
When broken down, the figures show that the Government expects to spend just over $239.30 billion on the recurrent side of the Budget and $141.06 billion on the capital side.