Kuwait reduced the volume of expenditures in the general budget for the current fiscal year 2020-2021, which began in early April, by 945 million dinars (3.1 billion dollars). The reduction comes amid unprecedented repercussions due to the Coronavirus and the drop in oil prices.
In this context, the head of the Budgets and Final Account Committee in the Kuwaiti National Assembly, Adnan Abdul Samad, revealed that the cuts will not affect employee rights, subsidy or social benefits, adding that “the Ministry of Finance has amended the current budget estimates, to reduce expenses to 21.5 billion dinars and revenues to 7.5 billion dinars.
In January, the Kuwaiti government approved the budget for the current fiscal year with expenditures estimated at 22.5 billion dinars, and revenues of 14.8 billion dinars. The Kuwaiti government has also raised its forecast for the general budget deficit to 14 billion dinars during the current year that ends next March, compared to 7.7 billion dinars estimated at the beginning of the year.
Abdul Samad expected that the budget deficit would improve because the price of a barrel of oil, on the basis of which the budget was estimated, is $30 and its recent price is about $45, explaining that there are many shortcomings on government contracts concluded during the Corona crisis.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
