03 Feb 2015

The budget outturn for 2013/14 financial year was a surplus of P7.22 billion, the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo, said on Monday when presenting the 2015/16 budget proposals in Parliament.

Mr Matambo said the surplus amount was higher than the amount of P3.47 billion that had been projected in the revised budget.  He said total revenues and grants increased by 7.8 per cent from P45.43 billion in the revised budget to P48.95 billion in the final budget outturn. 

“This was attributable to the stronger than anticipated performance of mineral revenue occasioned by unforeseen high volumes of diamond sales, exchange rate gains as well as under spending in the development budget by 27 per cent,” Mr Matambo said. 

He said total expenditure and net lending amounted to P41.73 billion against a revised budget of P45.04 billion. 

Turning to the 2014/15 revised estimates, the finance minister said total revenues and grants increased by 2.7 per cent from P50.18 billion in the original budget to P51.54 billion, mainly due to an increase in mineral revenue. 

“Mineral revenues are expected to increase by 13.1 per cent, while non-mineral income tax is expected to be lower than the original estimate y 6.6 per cent,” he said. 

He said the revised total expenditure and net lending for 2014/15 increased from the original budget of P48.86 billion to P51.26 billion. 

The increase was a result of supplementary funding of P1.17 billion for the recurrent budget and P1.41 billion for the development budget. 

“As a result, the revised 2014/15 budget shows a small surplus of P280.83 million, compared to the original estimate of P1.33 billion,” the minister said. ENDS