Government spent more in January than originally budgeted and collected less than projected to wipe out the projected $761 surplus originally budgeted, ending up with a deficit for the month of $3.274 billion. At the end of January, the year-to-date deficit is at $22.9 billion, just $2.65 billion less than the amount budgeted.
The revenue for the month was short of the $31.37 billion budgeted by $820 million. Capital expenditure exceeds the budget of $3.53 billion in the month by $1.45 billion coming in at $4.98 billion. However, capital expenditure is still running $7.6 billion below budget for the year to January.
The budget projected a shortfall of $2 billion in February and $19.5 billion surplus in March. The latter is in keeping with historical pattern with the last month of the fiscal years realizing a surpluses. If the budget is achieved for the remaining two months of the fiscal year, the fiscal deficit will come close to being wiped out and would have been reduced from $54.6 billion.
For the 10 months to January, tax revenues fell short by $13.2 billion and non-tax was below budget by $3.6 billion and recurrent expenditure was down $14.4 billion from budget. Interest cost was lower by $3.9 billion and other recurrence expenditure by $6.8 billion.
