Treasurer: Covid-19 will cost K600 mil annually over 3 years

National

THE Covid-19 pandemic will cost the country an extra K600 million annually over the next three years, says Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey.
He told Parliament that the Covid-19 packages would cost K1.8 billion over the three years.
“This hit on our budget has also been incorporated in medium-term fiscal framework,” Ling-Stuckey said.
“We have a plan endorsed by the Government and Parliament.
“The framework sees rapid declines in the size of our national budget, in the size of our national deficit from 9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) when the global pandemic hit, to 7.3 per cent this year, down to 2.1 percent by 2024.
“This framework sees a turnaround in our debt-to-GDP ratio from 51.5 per cent this year to 50.5 per cent in 2025 and hopefully declining thereafter.”
He was responding to questions without notice from Tewai-Siassi MP Dr Kobby Bomareo on the extra Covid-19 costs.
“This framework sees interest costs as a share of our total expenditure staying essentially constant at 12 to 13 per cent (and) decline from 2023 onwards,” Ling-Stuckey said.
In response to questions by Ialibu-Pangia MP Peter O’Neill, Ling-Stuckey said the Covid-19 funding total was about K5.7 million through the economic stimulus package announced last year.
He said money had gone where it was supposed to go, apart from instances of misuse being reported.
Ling-Stuckey said there were two wars on the Covid-19 – the health war and the economic war.