Monrovia – The Plenary of the House of Representatives has passed into law the FY 2017/18 Recast Budget in the tone of US$536 million.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
The House took the decision in its 17th Day Seating on Capitol Hill after the Body received the report from the Joint Committee on Ways Means Finance & Development Planning chaired by Rep. Thomas Fallah.
FrontPageAfrica was unable to get a copy of the Committee’s report to Plenary, but gathered that the report suggests several adjustments in the Recast Budget.
Adjustment includes, FPA learned include goods and services which stands at US$121,135,557 million, consumption of fixed capital US$1,407,301, interest and other charges US$2,978,896 while compensation for employees US$307, 280,850.
The 2017/18 National Budget was earlier approved at US$563,563,432.00 million in July of last year but due to economic constraints, the anticipated revenue was not generated because of the 2017 presidential and general elections, amongst other factors.
The draft recast budget submitted to the legislature by the Executive Branch of government proffered significant cuts in the purchase of fuel for the operations of government. The 55 percent cut on fuel across all government institutions except the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), medical facilities, the legislature, the judiciary and the security sector.
There was also 55% cut on travels across spending entities except for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs as well as the Judiciary.
According to the draft recast budget forwarded to the Speaker of the House, some goods and services were also been cut by 100%. The austerity measures, according to the Chief Executive, necessitate some changes to address priorities of his government.
The recast Budget shows consequence of the adverse budget impacts of a shortfall of US$83.7 million in expected revenue as at January 31, 2018, a situation that necessitated a revision of the original approved budget of US$563.5m to realistically align expenditure with revised revenue projections.
The recast budget also highlights both recurrent and non-recurrent expenditure for the rest of the fiscal year and includes “new pro-poor interventions” amounting to US$9.6 million on the revenue side.
Also, a few financing options are proposed in the recast budget including securing grants (Contingent upon certain triggers and agreements) from the African Development Bank, European Union, and the Governments of France and of India.