Overall revenues up by $378 million as at December 2020

The Jamaican Government has managed to grow its revenue collections above budget by $378.2 million for the period April to December 2020, in spite of the contraction in the local economy.

For the nine-month period, total revenues and grants collected amounted to $398.26 billion, which was $378.2 million more than projected. While running ahead of budget, this represented a decrease of approximately 15.1 per cent relative to the $469.16 billion recorded for the corresponding period in 2019.

This biggest tax performers were ‘non-tax revenue’ and ‘grants’ outperformed projections during the review period. ‘Non-tax revenue’ amounted to $47.77 billion, which was $594.7 million more than budgeted. ‘Grants’ amounted to $3.97 billion during the review period and outperformed the budget by $528.1 million.

However, the biggest decline was in the area of ‘Tax Revenue’ which amounted to $346.49 billion, which was $744.6 million less than budgeted. Notably, no budgeted amount was booked for ‘Bauxite Levy’.

‘Capital Revenue’ closed the period with a provisional amount of $22.10 million, corresponding with the budgeted amount.

Government Expenditures

Total expenditure by the government for the period April to December 2020 amounted to $468.51 billion, which was $3.61 billion less than the budgeted amount of $472.12 billion. Recurrent expenditure, which totalled $432.08 billion, accounted for 92.22 per cent of overall expenditures.

Of the recurrent expenditure categories for the review period, the only category above the budgeted amount was ‘Interest’. ‘Interest’ totalled $87.79 billion, which was 1.7 per cent above the budgeted amount of $86.32 billion.

Relative to projections, ‘Wages and Salaries’ amounted to $155.74 billion and was $63.4 million less than budgeted, which shows the extent of the government’s efforts at trying to contain wages in the public sector. The expenditure on ‘Programmes’ totalled $177.49 billion, which was 1.4 per cent less than budgeted.

Additionally, ‘Employee Contribution’ totalled $11.07 billion, which was 3.0 per cent less than the budgeted amount of $11.41 billion. The ‘Fiscal Deficit’ which is a shortfall in a government’s income compared with its spending was $70.25 billion, relative to the projected deficit of $74.24 billion.

Additionally, the ‘Primary Surplus Balance’, for the period amounted to $17.53 billion, relative to the budgeted primary surplus of $12.08 million. The primary balance is when revenue is more than non-interest expenditure.