Govt overspent by 42.3% in 2016 4th quarter

The latest Treasury bulletin shows that Government expenditure for the fourth quarter amounted to $1,432 billion against a target of $1,006 billion, resulting in an expenditure overrun of 42,3 percent.

In the fourth quarter, recurrent expenditure was $1,025 billion, while capital expenditure and net lending amounted to $407,2 million. Much of the recurrent expenditure came from employment costs, taking up 66 percent of total expenditure and about 92 percent of revenue collected in the period. Revenue amounting to $902,45 million was collected in the fourth quarter compared to $907,35 million in the third quarter. Compared to the fourth quarter of 2015, revenue was down by 18,2 percent, its lowest since 2013.

For the whole year 2016, expenditure amounted to $4,923 billion, made up of recurrent expenditure of $3,956 billion and $967,5 million in capital expenses and net lending. However, revenue collections of $3,502 billion were realised in 2016 against an annual target of $3,850 billion, translating into a negative variance of 9 percent. The 2016 revenue was the equivalent of 24,7 percent of GDP, down from 26,3 percent of GDP collected during the previous year.