Central Govt. spends less in 2016 than projected

Apr 22, 2017 News

…procurement setbacks among reasons

For the year 2016, Central Government’s total expenditure amounted to $216.8B. This amount is $4.2B less than was projected by Minister of Finance Winston Jordan at the time of his 2017 budget presentation last year.

Finance Minister, Winston Jordan

This information was produced in the End of Year report for 2016 which was recently presented to the National Assembly by the Minister. According to the report, total non-interest recurrent expenditure amounted to $163.4B in 2016 which was marginally less than the $166.7B projected at the time of the 2017 budget presentation.
This was due to lower than projected spending for Other Goods and Services and Transfer Payments. According to the report, Other Goods and Services totalled $46.8B for 2016 marginally less than $48.8B which was projected.
The report said that the Transfer Payments totalled $67.3B in 2016 which was less than the projected $68.8B. As it relates to Constitutional Agencies, a total of $686.8M was unspent due to the non-execution of a house to house census and several projects which were not executed due to setbacks from the tender process.
Employment costs for the year amounted to $49.4B in 2016, slightly higher than the $49B that was projected. On the matter of capital expenditure, the report said that $46.6B was spent which was marginally less than the $47.6B. The report said that this reduction was due largely to a continued slow implementation of Guyana’s loan portfolio, which declined by 12 per cent.
This is not the first instance whereby Central Government would have spent less than expected. The same had occurred for 2015 and was recorded in the Auditor General’s report for that fiscal year.
These amounts were not the only ones that would have differed from the projections for the year as presented in the 2017 budget. Tax and non-tax revenue collections in 2016 were $177.3B which was $2.5B above the projections in the 2017 budget, due to higher than expected tax revenues.
The report said that tax revenues rose to $151.7B in 2016 which was also $2.5B greater than projected at the time of the 2017 budget. Total non-tax revenue increased to $25.5B which was in line with projections.
It was stated that the Guyana Revenue Authority had remitted $42.3B in 2016, a marginal $274M below projections at the time of the presentation for the budget. The report said that Central Government had recorded a fiscal deficit of $31.7B in 2016 of Gross Domestic Product, which was smaller than the $38.4B of GDP deficit projected.
This was apparently due to lower expenditures, particularly current expenditures in addition to higher than projected revenues and grants.

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