No major changes expected

Durrant Pate/Contributor

The Government of Jamaica is to table the country’s revised 2022-2023 National Budget in Parliament this afternoon.

However, no major changes are expected to the budget of J$912 billion with only a slight movement in the total amount due to more shifting around of monetary allocations to reflect the Goverment’s imperatives for the remainder of the fiscal year.

These details will be spelt out in the First Supplementary Estimates 2022-2023, which are being tabled and then referred to the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) of Parliament.

Jamaica Public Bodies, First Supplementary Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for the Year Ending March 2023 is also being tabled this afternoon and referred to the PAAC. The good news is that revenue collections have been over-performing.

For the period April to September 2022, revenues for the national treasury were still running ahead of projections, based on data from the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service on the operations of government.

Total revenues and grants for the period amounted to J$371.99 billion, which is J$40.43 billion more than the Government’s projection.

This represented an increase of approximately 12.8 per cent relative to the J$329.92 billion recorded for the corresponding period in 2021. There may be adjustments in the allocations made for the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project, stretching from St Thomas through to Portland, as the government seeks to address concerns from residents in St Thomas over delays in the road work and the deplorable conditions of the roadway there.

Provisions for public sector wages being watched

There have been mounting demonstrations with Dr Michelle Charles, the member of parliament for Eastern St Thomas, demanding that the sub-contractors be sacked for their poor handing of the road work.

Eyes will be looking at the Government’s wage bill provisions to see the incremental amount that will be allocated for public sector wages, where the administration is still in negotiations with a deal likely anytime soon.

With the rise in interest rates, the cost for government borrowing has gone up and, as a result, there could be some adjustment in this budgetary provisions. With revenues exceeding target, the Government could opt to pay off even more debt to avoid the increasing cost or improve the provison for debt servicing cost to compensate for the rising interest cost on that debt.

Of the total J$912 billion approved by Parliament in April, J$604.5 billion is for non-debt expenditure and J$307.5 billion for debt service expenditures. This National Budget is an increase of J$81.2 billion over the budget for financial year 2021-22.

This year’s Budget was crafted against the background of a promising rebound in economic growth over the past few months, as Jamaica staged a notable recovery from the impact of the COVID–19 pandemic with forecasted growth ranging between seven to nine per cent during 2021-2022.