Budget revised upward favoring social protection, education, health
Yesterday, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Claver Gatete, tabled before Parliament the proposed 2015/16 revised Budget.
The latter has been revised upward by Frw 40.6 billion meaning that the budget estimates for the fiscal year now stand at Frw 1,808.8 billion, up from Frw 1.76 which was initially approved by Parliament in June 2015.
Presenting the revised Budget before Parliament, Minister Claver Gatete pointed out that the upward revision is a result of a budgetary loan from the World Bank worth Frw 18.4 billion for social protection, Frw 15.9 billion support from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) for education programmes and Frw 15.6 billion from Global Fund HIV budget.
Domestic resources are increase to Frw 1,048.6 billion from Frw 1,046.2 billion that was initially approved by Parliament. This has an overall slight increase of Frw 2.5 billion.
The Minister stressed that the revision will help in the speeding up and completion of ongoing development, play a role in reducing fiscal deficit as the country aims to cut down reliance on external financing.
On the expenditure side, the recurrent budget has been revised upward to Frw 891.6 billion from Frw 877.2 Billion in original budget indicating a net increase of Frw 14.4 billion.
The rise in expenditure will cover major spending shortfalls as follows: Addition of Frw 3.0 billion to National Electoral Commission to cater for referendum and local government elections, Frw 2 billion to cater for African Nations Championship (CHAN) organization, Frw 3.7 billion to cater for operations in Rwandan Diplomatic Missions abroad and Frw 4.3 billion for the salaries of new teachers to be recruited and shortfall in salaries of police officers, the army, Workforce Development Agency and National Agriculture Export Development Board.
The development budget has been revised upward from Frw 747.2 billion to Frw 776.3 billion showing a net increase of Frw 29.1 billion. This increase will benefit mainly projects and programmes in Health Sector (Frw 15.6 billion) due to Global Fund carry forward from 2014/15; Frw 0.6 billion will be spent on CCTV Project, Frw 0.4 billion to Rwanda Agriculture Board for the purchase of livestock for One Cow Per Poor Family programme and Frw 0.3 billion to the Ministry of Natural Resources for mineral exploration project as well as other key government projects.
The net lending has been revised downward from Frw 132.2 billion in original budget to FRW 112.8 billion. This is mainly due to a reduction of allocation to Kigali Convention Center project (Frw 26.5 Billion) which was spent towards end of June 2015 and additional support to Rwandair.