Conclusion

This Budget makes history, not all for the right reasons. It is the largest Budget ever – by far -much of it in capital works. It is all about spending and borrowing. The Minister has given no explanation for the levels of spending and borrowing. Even if this Government can bring inefficiencies down to 10%, we will have a loss over 100 billion dollars, before any later supplementary provisions.

Because of a change in how the Estimates are constructed, the exact starting balance in the Consolidated Fund is indeterminable. In other words, the Government will be spending from a fund whose balance is unascertained. The Ministries, Departments and Regions have demonstrated no financial capacity or capability to handle the kinds of sums for which the Minister seeks parliamentary approval.

The Capital Budget is now $666.1 billion dollars or US$3.1 billion, without an independent planning authority. Volume 3 of the Estimates identify close to 400 projects many of which bear nebulous names and descriptions. One common factor is that many of them have not been subjected to any serious evaluation. Indeed, many bear the hallmark of slush funds. Here are a few examples.

Regional Economic transformation is allocated $5 billion while Community Infrastructure Improvement Project is allocated $13.4 billion. The Low Carbon Development Programme is allocated $50 billion while the Amerindian Development Fund is allocated $4.6 billion dollars, even though it is highly that such a fund in fact exists. Another $3.3 billion for Industrial Estates and Payment of Retention is allocated under the Ministry of Tourism while under Agriculture there is the Integrated Agriculture Development Programmme for $6.7 billion to cover enterprise and agriculture development initiatives. The list goes on and on.

The Gas to-Shore project is facing an uncertain funding situation, and having so committed itself, the Government may have to rely on the Natural Resource Fund for salvation. Hopefully, this will be mutual support and not anything else.

The legislative performance of this Administration is sorely lacking. There can be no excuse for the fact that most of the Ministers have failed to produce even a single piece of secondary legislation, let alone primary legislation. It is hard to put this down to absorptive capacity. President Ali has to recognise that this reflects on him, and he needs to demand more from his ministers. But he himself needs to lay put his policy agenda in the National Assembly and not have this communicated by some third party on a Thursday.

There is a modest increase in the allocation for State Audit despite its substantially greater responsibilities while the Budget has increased by approximately 46.6%. The country’s accountability framework is not helped by the tardiness of the Public Accounts Committee. The guardrails for transparency and accountability are being systematically dismantled.

As usual, the Budget has received commendation from the Private Sector Commission which could hardly produce a Budget Submission to the Minister. FITUG also praised the Budget but then its own General Secretary sits on the board of directors of the NIS which agreed to take up a legal challenge against a 74-year-old ex-carpenter.

The list of unfinished business is long and getting longer. The Courts are already scheduling court hearings to the second half of 2024. The prisons are overcrowded with persons awaiting their trial.

This Focus includes an essay on the shocking level of collections by the GRA from the army of self-employed persons. The fact that we are forced to raise a matter to which we drew attention thirty years ago causes us deep concern. It is time that the talking ends and for the GRA to act against lawyers, accountants, doctors, contractors and all others who treat the tax system as some voluntary arrangement.

If the exchanges between the Minister of Finance and a few of the Opposition members during the Speech is any indicator, the debate starting next Monday will be bitter and acrimonious. In the final analysis, with the security of its one-seat majority, the Estimates are as good as passed, as usual.