|
Report projects transparent budgets
THE outcome of exceeding the revised target in the 2006 budget and
repaying moderate debt has been helpful to the economy, Treasurer Sir
Rabbie Namaliu said yesterday, when tabling a report on the final
outcome of the 2006 budget.
Sir Rabbie said this put an extra downward influence on interest rates,
which helped PNG businesses and households, and helped the Government’s
financial position.
The Treasurer said the publication of the report was a significant
milestone in the Government’s progress in increasing transparency of the
budget, and in providing fuller information about how Government
agencies were spending public money.
He said the report provided to Parliament and the public full details of
how the budget outcome for last year varied from the estimates, which
were contained in the 2006 budget passed by Parliament in late 2005, and
the two supplementary budgets passed in August and November 2006.
Sir Rabbie said the total revenue and grants for 2006 was K6,311.4
million, which was K149.6 million higher than the revised estimate in
this year’s budget.
He said tax in income and profits exceeded the revised estimate by
K179.3 million, while earlier in the year, there were large increases in
the forecast for mining and petroleum taxes, as the main basis for the
year’s two supplementary budgets.
He said at the end of the year, mining and petroleum taxes came in close
to the revised forecast.
Total expenditure and net lending in 2006 was K5,881.2 million, which
was K280.6 million lower than the revised estimate in this year’s
budget.
Sir Rabbie said the main areas of lower expenditure were interest
payments and national departmental expenditure, which more than offset
higher than forecast expenditure by provincial governments.
Development expenditure in 2006 was K1,559.5 million, K127.7 million
below the original and revised estimates of K1,687.2 million.
“This was the combined result of four factors – shortfall of K79.4
million in estimated project grants, a shortfall of K47.8 million in
reported utilisation of infrastructure tax credits, a shortfall of K12.6
million in draw-downs of concessional loans and an overshoot of K12.1
million in domestically funded expenditure.
He said a surplus of K430.2 million was the budget outcome last year,
equal to 2.5% of GDP.
Total public debt was K6,798.9 million at the end of 2006, K542.1
million below the revised estimate.
“This reflects a much larger than expected retirement of domestic debt,
plus slightly lower repayments of external debt and some favourable
exchange rate variations.”
 
|
