03 Feb 2014

The budget outturn for the 2012/2013 financial year was an overall budget surplus of P922 million compared to the estimated surplus of P835 million in the revised budget estimates, says Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo.

Presenting the 2014/15 budget speech at the National Assembly on Monday, February 3, Mr Matambo attributed this mainly to under spending in the development budget. He said total revenue and grants amounted to P41.66 billion in the 2012/13, representing a decrease of P253 million or 0.6 per cent from 41.91 billion in the revised budget estimates.

The decline in total revenues, he said, was due to the under performance of the non-mineral tax revenue which amounted to P6.73 billion, a decrease of P1.15 billion or 14.6 per cent as a result of under-performance of the VAT revenue. He further said total expenditure and net lending in 2012/2013,  amounted to P40.74 billion compared to P41.08 billion in the revised budget, representing an under spending  of P339 million or about  0.8 per cent of the revised budget.

Of the total amount, he said recurrent expenditure was P32.11 billion compared to P31.77 billion in the revised budget estimates, representing an increase of 1.1 per cent. On the other hand, he said development expenditure stood at P8.3 billion, representing an under spending of P1.08 billion or P11.5 per cent of the revised budget.

Regarding the 2013/2014 Revised Budget Estimates, he said the estimates showed an estimated surplus of P386.16 million, down from the original estimate of P779.3 million. Total revenue and grants increased by 3.1 per cent from P44.02 billion in the original budget to P45.43 billion in the revised budget estimates, which he said  was due to an increase in the Bank of Botswana revenue.

He said this was as a result of capital and exchange rate gains realized during the rebalancing of the portfolio to align it with the revised investment strategy for the country’s foreign exchange reserves. Mr Matambo further said the revised total expenditure and net lending for 2013/2014 was estimated at P45.04 billion, representing an increase of 4.1 per cent over the original budget of P43.24 through supplementary budgets.

Among the major beneficiaries of the increase in the budget, he said were: Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources with P1.10 billion for support of the energy sector and Ministry of Agriculture with P105 million for drought relief. ENDS