Monrovia – Legislative sources have confided in FrontPageAfrica that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is concerned about a US$46 million increment made in the 2016/2017 fiscal budget.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
According to our sources, the President is concerned about the executive branch’s capacity to generate the amount in revenue.
Accordingly, FrontPageAfrica has gathered that lawmakers might cut short their constituency break to return to the Capitol for two weeks to discuss several key national agreements.
President Sirleaf is yet to sign the budget since it was passed the legislature in July of 2016.
Some sources have suggested that the return was to ratify some oil bloc in Maryland County but another source dispel the rumor.
According to Legislative source the called to return is been made by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to discusses issues including the National Budget Expenditure component of the budget that has already been passed by lawmakers and signed by the President.
The Executive branch through the ministry of Finance and Development planning submitted a proposed budget of US$555.9M but the House of Representatives increased the amount to US$600 million.
Increase in the national budget came after President Sirleaf and other officials of the ruling Unity Party warned that the country experienced a bad economic situation in 2016 going toward the 2017 election.
Announcing the approval of the 2016/2017 budget by the House of Representatives, Representative Prince Moye, Chairman on Ways, Means and Finance Committee announced that the body sourced additional $46Million funding increasing the amount from US$550, 99,598 to 600,203,674.
Legislative sources told FrontPage Africa that the executive branch of government was concerned about how to generate the additional $46M and had requested the Legislature to return to recast the budget.
The Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) recommended that taxes on alcoholic beverages, water and soft drink be increased. The House’ Committee on Ways, Means and Finance rejected the recommendation.
The committee also said that section 1165 of the Liberian Revenue Code — that call for increased taxes on the commodities—would contravene the World Trade Organization’s agreement that Liberia just subscribed to. It added that increasing tariff on the commodities would economic challenges.
Many financial experts predicted that when the $600 million is realized by the government, it will be the first time the Sirleaf led administration is realizing such huge goal in revenue generation.
Plenary of the House of Representatives unanimously endorsed a report from its specialized technical committee to pass the fiscal year 2016/2017 national budget. On May 14, 2016 the Executive submitted the sum of US$550,992,598 for legislative approval but the fiscal instrument languished before the lawmakers for nearly three months due to the leadership wrangle.
After weeks of indoor and public scrutiny of both the revenue and expenditure components of the draft national budget by the specialized technical committee along with the relevant line ministries and agencies, over 46,000,000 was identified as additional and unencumbered revenue, the House of Representatives declared.
During the fiscal year 2015/2016, the Executive submitted a budget of US$604,040 million but the National Legislature approved US$622,743,420; and before the end of the fiscal period the governments experienced a budget shortfall, where the ministry of finance announced austerity measures to resolve the deficit.
For over nine years the government has been experiencing budget shortfalls resulting to recast budget and with the prices of major commodities down on the world market the government is projecting that it will be able to collect US600M.
