Almost $90b added to budget for this fiscal year

The House of Representatives is this afternoon expected to give its approval to a plan by the Government to spend just under $90 billion more than it initially set out to for this fiscal year.

In the first Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Audley Shaw yesterday, the budget for the fiscal year was revealed at $805.4 billion, up from $715.5 billion.

That’s an approximately 12 per cent increase.

This includes some $22 billion more for house-keeping or recurrent expenditure which pushes the planned spending on areas such as salaries to $377.9 billion up from $355.9 billion.

Among the ministries which have been awarded more for housekeeping expenses is the ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation which gets an additional $2.6 billion. 

The Ministry of Finance has been given $11 billion more for its recurrent expenses with $12 billion going to Petrojam.

There is also more money in the Supplementary Estimates for the Ministry of National Security, the Police Force, and the Ministry of Health, among others.

The Robert Montague-led security ministry has been allocated a further $1 billion for capital expenditure including the purchase of vehicles, implementation of new national security initiatives and $465 million for telecommunications equipment.

The Standing finance committee and the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee are expected to deliberate on the supplementary estimates ahead of this afternoon's sitting of the House.