Government revenue and grants have increased by 8.2 percent with expenditure down by 16.7 percent in the first 29 weeks of the year compared to the same period last year, official fiscal figures have shown.
According to the Ministry of Finance and Planning’s Weekly Fiscal Development Report, state revenue was recorded at USD 1.54 billion from 1 January to 7 August - an 8.2 percent increase from the 1.42 billion over the same period last year.
The figures showed that tax revenue accounted for the bulk of the year's total revenue thus far followed by non-tax revenue. The government has collected USD 1.2 billion in taxes and USD 324.3 million so far this year.
The government posted USD 1.4 billion in total expenditure as of last week, down 16.7 percent from the same period last year. The government's recurrent expenditure declined by 1.1 percent while capital expenditure plunged 60.4 percent.
Amid the ongoing austerity measures, 56.9 percent of recurrent expenditure was recorded as administrative expenses, down 5.4 percent from the same period last year. Office supplies reduced by 17.8 percent while repairs and maintenance costs declined 19.9 percent along with expenditure on transportation by 5.3 percent and subsidy costs decreased by 9.1 percent compared to the previous year, the figures showed.
As of last week, the total capital expenditure was at USD 181.6 million majority of which was on key infrastructure assets like road construction, bridges and airport development. This is 21.2 percent of the total budget approved by the Parliament for this year.