May 5, 2020
Government Operations Results for March 2020
For the period of April 2019 to March 2020, the GOJ reported Total Revenues & Grants of $649.76 billion, $4.50 billion more than the Government’s projection. Furthermore, year over year, this represents an increase of approximately 3.3% relative to the $628.99 billion recorded for the corresponding period in 2019. ‘Tax Revenue’, ‘Non-Tax Revenue’ and ‘Capital Revenues’ all outperformed projections during the review period. ‘Tax Revenue’ amounted to $579.40 billion; $1.86 billion more than budgeted. Likewise, ‘Non-Tax Revenue’ closed at $64.51 billion, $2.76 billion over the expected amount. ‘Capital Revenue’ of $1.20 billion was reported; $73.90 million more than budgeted. Lastly, ‘Grants’ totaled $4.66 billion, $61.3 million or 1.3% less than budgeted. Notably, no provisional amount was booked for ‘Bauxite Levy’ for the review period.
Expenditures
Total Expenditure for the period April 2019 to March 2020 amounted to $630.35 billion, $12.26 billion or 1.9% less than the budgeted amount of $642.61 billion. Recurrent expenditure which totaled $559.96 billion, accounted for 88.83% of overall expenditures, which is $11.37 billion less than the budgeted amount. Of the recurrent expenditure categories for the review period, all categories were below the budgeted amount except ‘Wages & Salaries’ which closed at $195.94 billion, $763.80 million more than the budgeted amount. As such, ‘Programmes’ amounted to $216.86 billion which was $3.21 billion or 1.5% less than projected amount. Similarly, ‘Compensation of Employees’ totaled $211.62 billion, $515.70 million below the budgeted amount. In addition, ‘Employee Contribution’ totaled $15.68 billion, 7.5% less than the budgeted amount of $16.96 billion.
As a result of the decrease in Expenditures for the period April 2019 to March 2020, the ‘Fiscal Surplus’ was $19.40 billion, relative to a projected surplus of $2.65 billion. Additionally, the primary balance for the period amounted to $150.89 billion, 6.4% more than budgeted.
Revised Budget
Third Supplementary Estimates
The House of Representatives approved the Third Supplementary Estimates on March 25th, subsequent to the Second Supplementary Estimates released on February 4th, 2020.
“The Third Supplementary Estimates FY 2019/2020 was tabled in Parliament on March 24, 2020 and represents a revised budgetary provision for the Government’s coronavirus (COVID-19) response,” as stated by the Jamaica Information Service (JIS).
According to JIS, “Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, noted that the revised Estimates of Expenditure incorporate the reallocation of unutilised Central Government resources, the majority of which will go towards financing COVID-related activities. The revision does not change the total amount of the current year Budget, which remains at $859 billion. However, it reallocates $832 million from capital spending to recurrent expenditure.”
Furthermore, “Dr. Clarke highlighted that, the reallocation of resources is possible due to the slower than programmed execution of elements of the 2019/20 Budget, and a lot of that as well as expenses that were programmed for March that have been interrupted by these activities. As a result of this, unutilised balances were identified across ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) representing amounts that will not be utilised under the existing allocations,” according to the JIS.
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