The Government yesterday tabled supplementary estimates boosting spending this financial year by approximately $90 billion.
The additional spending has pushed the 2017/18 estimates of expenditures from $716 billion to $805 billion, with capital expenditure moving up by approximately $69 billion and recurrent or housekeeping expenditure increasing by $21.6 billion
One of the main features of the new estimates is a $2-billion capital allocation for road repairs under the Ministry of Economic Growth and Jobs Creation.
The provisions will cover an islandwide rehabilitation programme for parish council, farm and main roads which have suffered structural damage as a result of heavy rainfall over the past few months.
These funds include a transferred sum of $491 million which had originally been allocated to the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service for natural disasters/infrastructure rehabilitation, as well as $300 million which had been allocated as a contingency provision for a public investment management system.
The Ministry of National Security received a top-up for its new initiatives totalling $900 million and $128 million for repairs to police stations.
In the Office of the Prime Minister, $112 million more has been allocated for the rural economic development initiative, and $154 million more for youth employment initiatives in the digital and creative industries.
A total of $94 million have been added to the funding for the Public Sector Modernisation Programme, boosting its allocation to $747 million.
In agriculture, $220 million has been added to the Agricultural Competitiveness Programme, formerly the Rural Competitiveness Programme.
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