Authorities at the Ministry of Finance has announced the release of the first mid-year budget performance report which includes revenue and expenditure performance in the fiscal year 2012/2013 national budget.
The ministry said the release of the performance report is part of the Government's Open Budget process.
The report says revenue performance during the first half of the fiscal year has been strong with total collection as at 31st December 2012 being put at US$246.2m, against a projection of US$228.8m. This is US$31.6m, or 15%, more than collection during the same period in FY11/12.
Tax revenues are on target, the ministry said, with collection of US$183.94m against a projection of US$183.19m, which it adds constitute 75% of total revenue.
"This represents a significant increase in tax revenues from FY11/12, where US$155.79m was collected during the same period," the ministry announced.
The Ministry discloses the actual tax revenue receipt as US$183m, non -tax revenue as US$29.6m, direct budget support as US$15m and contingent revenues as US$17.5.
The Ministry says of the total amount of revenue received by Government, the Department of Revenue collected US$225m; Liberia Maritime Authority collected US$12.4m, while the remaining US$8.4m was collected by sector ministries against their ministries projected amount of US$6.8m for the reporting period.
During the reporting period, the Government of Liberia received US$5m and US$1m respectively from the National Oil Company of Liberia and the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company as installment payments against their total annual contributions to the FY12/13 National Budget.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance says it has disbursed out of the US$672m annual appropriation the sum of US$224.4m to eleven Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) sectors for the same reporting period of July-December 31, 2012
The Ministry says the Public Administration sector received the highest disbursement amounting to US$62m, followed by Education sector at US$36m and Security and Rule of Law at US$33m. Other sectors including Health, Infrastructure and Basic Social Services received the amount of US$27m and US$20.7m respectively,
The amount of US$187m was spent on recurrent expenditure and US$37.4m on Public Sector Investment Plan (PSIP) for the period covering the middle of the fiscal year 2012/2013.
The total expenditure from the PSIP included the disbursement of US$8.1m on energy, of which US$5m for the Heavy Fuel Oil Thermal Plant (HFO), and US$3.1m toward the rehabilitation of the Mount Coffee Hydro plant.
The PSIP expenditures also cover the disbursement of US$15.2m toward the rehabilitation of Roads and Bridges around the country and US$1.1m toward Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) projects.
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Are ordinary Liberians feeling the impact of this new budget? We need to know how many government projects were undertaken and completed by the GOL. Most the money generated are making its way to individual government officials pockets because their salaries and benefits alone take all the money. Nothing is left for the ordinary people. God save Liberia and change our thinking for the better.
MTEF,PSIP and HFO are some of the acronyms used in this budget report story. How are these budget programs helping to solve the unemployment currently at 80% problem in this post conflict country. In her second term this president has yet to show a clear plan economic and otherwise to move the country forward. The country is being run on an ad hoc basis after more than six years in office. I do not want to discuss corruption and nepotism at this time. Where is the vision from the leader for the country. There is need for planned programs to invest in the country and its people. We need indegenious programs tailored with practices from similiar post-conflict countries like ours to inform our planning. Budgets are not just to fund recurrent expenditures but to invest in the economy. Reporting acronyms and numbers is one thing, accomplishing results and making progress is another.
I say government should formulate long-term plans to invest in agriculture on a national scale by establishing state farms in each county; this will help ease the unemployment challenge and make the country more self sufficient. If government really put their heads to it this could be a reality with the building of railways across the country to help deliver goods to key cities while also helping ease the clumsy problems of transportation that slow the country down especially during the rainy season. This may not be too cheap to implement but the long-term returns could be worth the effort.