Govt met revenue targets: Treasurer

THE Government was able to meet its revenue and financing targets as well as keep its expenditure under control in last year’s budget through budget repair, Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey says.
Presenting the 2021 Final Budget Outcome (FBO) yesterday, Ling-Stuckey highlighted that the budget deficit was kept at K6.3 billion, a reduction from the expected K6.6bil and higher expenditure of K20bil due to higher donor grants.
Revenues generated amounted to K13.9bil from higher tax revenues and donor grants.
“As a share of our GDP (gross domestic product), the deficit drops from 8.9 per cent of GDP in 2020 down to 6.7 per cent in 2021. A reduction of over K1bil from the K7bil in 2020,” Ling-Stuckey said.
“By international standards, this is an extraordinary turnaround in just one year – an improvement of 2.2 percentage points of GDP, more than double what would be regarded internationally as a good rate of repair.
“Budget repair and reconstruction builds international credibility.”
The Treasurer said Government received K4.9bil in good, cheap international financing.
“Our constructive, open and transparent international engagements also led to a major increase in international grant support.
“We budgeted for K1bil in international grant support in 2021 and received K2.1bil, more than double. An extra K1 billion in grant support.”