The Ānanda
Posted in Budget Transparency on May 14, 2020
Upcoming parliamentary session will merely focus on supplementary budget proposals which try to adjust additional financial requirements of government ministries as needed through the implementation of the annual budget law.
The executive Finance Commission headed by the President approved the supplementary budget proposals, now with the parliament, on 7 April.
The additional budget requests are stemmed mainly from personnel costs such as salaries, emoluments, travel allowances and pensions, debt repayments, costs incurred from increases in tax rates and electricity bill (for state-owned enterprises), costs for pending aids/loans, ongoing construction projects and compensations for land acquisitions. (President Office 2020)
Union Budget
Union-level organizations/ministries and State-owned Economic Enterprises outside the Union Budget requested 2,997.656 billion MMK in supplementary budget. The Finance Commission approved the 2,660.987 billion MMK as the Ministry of Planning, Finance and Industry reviewed the initial proposals and cut 336.669 billion MMK.
The original annual budget estimated 25,199.760 billion MMK in revenue and 31,918.891 billion MMK in expenditures with the deficit of 9,719.131 billion MMK.
State/Region Budget
The State/Region Governments requested 399.658 billion MMK in supplementary budget proposals which was also reviewed by MOPFI who suggested the Commission to reduce the amount to 304.104 billion MMK, cutting 95.554 billion MMK. The adjusted budget proposals required the Union government to contribute 59.518 billion MMK to the subnational governments in deficit financing. The supplementary appropriations for the state/region governments will be used in projects that have direct impacts on lives of the people in the areas, the commission noted. The budget cut criteria for the subnational budgets are set on receipts of previous Union contribution, revenue share and original budget. The ceiling set for the additional allocations is no more than 3 percent of original budget.
The original annual budget for all state/region governments combined estimated 1,210.704 billion MMK in revenue and 3,325.090 billion MMK in expenditures with the deficit of 2,114.386 billion MMK which was already financed by the Union government.
Covid-19 Response
According to Covid-19 Economic Response Plan released by the government in April, the budget of ministries will be cut up to 10% which will be reallocated for Covid-19 response. The highest possible amount from this budget reallocation would be 1525.971 million Kyat.
Aung Htun Lin
Reference
သမ္မတရုံး၊ ၂၀၂၀။ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးကော်မရှင် (၁/ ၂၀၂၀) ကြိမ်မြောက် အစည်းအဝေးကျင်းပ။ [Online] Available at: https://www.president-office.gov.mm/?q=briefing-room/news/2020/04/07/id-16383 (Accessed 8 May 2020)
Government of the Republic of Myanmar, 2020. Overcoming as One: Covid-19 Economic Relief Plan. [Online] Available at: https://www.moi.gov.mm/moi:eng/?q=news/28/04/2020/id-21511 (Accessed 14 May 2020)