Alarming budget figures: Supreme Planning Council

More treatment requested for diplomats

KUWAIT: The Supreme Council for Planning and Development (SCPD) has warned the government in general and the finance ministry in particular about the budget deficit. A SCPD report stressed that the 2016-2017 budget was void of any solutions or tangible measures to fix the current problems and undo what it described as ‘financial laxity’ that has impacts on political and sociopolitical stability.

The report also warned of vast negative impacts of declaring unprecedented deficits while the government does not make clear scheduled pledges to carry out the needed remedies. The report used phrases like: “the economy is heading towards a very sharp slope”, “continuation of current spending would lead state economy to big shocks” and “those figures, then, foretell a terrifying future”.

Total revenues

The report made by the council’s economic development committee after reviewing the 2016-2017 budget said that total revenues were estimated at KD 7.4 billion, which is less than that of 2015-2016 by KD 4.8 billion (39.3 percent), that oil revenues would drop by 46.3 percent, non-oil revenues would only be 14.3 percent of total revenues, total expenditure would be KD 18.9 billion, which is 1.6 percent less than that of 2015-2016 and that total expected deficit would be KD 12.2 billion.

Accordingly, SCPD recommended imposing taxes on companies’ profits, imposing taxes on luxury goods, adjusting the fees collected for using public properties, reconsidering goods and services prices, replacing goods subsidies with cash to be only paid to deserving citizens, limiting recruitment in the public sector, suspending any pay rises or incentives, limiting the cost of overseas treatment, cutting down the expenses of hospitality, gifts, ceremonies and luxury furniture, halting the establishments of new public authorities or establishments and merging exiting ones, limiting committees’ rewards and renting new buildings, privatizing all local state-owned companies and parts of the oil companies, offering projects like ports and airports to local and international private sector bidders and selling some assets to the private sector through public auctions.

Diplomats’ treatment

In other news, well-informed governmental sources said that the Cabinet intends to amend financial regulations for foreign ministry employees and that the new regulations were submitted to various relevant government bodies for advice. The sources explained that the amendments included adjusting article 28 of decree law number 245/2005 pertaining including foreign ministry employees and their families in health insurance that allows them to receive medical treatment in any country they see fit. “This will expand the number of beneficiaries from the foreign ministry’s health insurance,” stressed the sources, noting that such an adjustment would cost the government a lot at a time when the entire government is working on cutting expenses following austerity measures to face budget deficits. — Al-Qabas