Government rules out supplementary budget to plug 2013 shortfall, commits to T-bill sales

04 Oct 2013, 12:10 PM
Neil Merrett
Finance Minister Abdulla Jihad has said the government has overcome the need to issue a supplementary budget to plug a shortfall in state spending for the current year, relying instead on short-term treasury bills (T-bills) to carry over its debts.
The comments were made as the Ministry of Finance today confirmed it had been officially requested to present the proposed annual 2014 state budget to parliament on October 30, with work ongoing despite the challenges posed by the upcoming Eid holidays.
Jihad previously told Minivan News that despite anticipating parliament would need to approve a supplementary budget after state offices were found to have exhausted their recurrent expenditure for 2013 by April, the government was now instead relying on T-bills to balance outgoings.
The finance minister last month said that the Maldives was relying on 28 day T-bills to help “roll over” debt one month at a time after parliament had failed to approve a number of measures to try and increase state expenditure not included in the 2013 budget.

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