GOJ enjoys lower Interest cost

The payment for interest on the country’s huge national debt in April by the government of Jamaica ended at $900 million less than budgeted. The total amount paid is also less than that paid in April last year.
Interest payments amount to $7.376 billion compared with $8.168 billion budgeted and is down on the $7.875 billion paid in 2014. The expenditure saw a near $1 billion savings from the budgeted amount for local debt of $4.588 billion, compared to the budgeted sum of $4.547 billion, there was a slight increase in the cost of foreign debt to $2.788 billion, versus $2.621 billion budgeted.
The fall in the interest cost on the local debt would have occurred as a result of Treasury bill rates having fallen at the time the budget was crafted and April, with government having variable rate instruments funding its operations. The cut in the cost amounts to a large 20 percent and if the savings were to continue for the rest of the fiscal year, the savings could be around $12 billion on the amount of $63 billion allocated to pay interest on the local debt.
Overall revenues collected by government was $28.26 billion, a shade less than forecast at $28.6 billion while recurrent expenditures of $41.56 billion were under budget of $42.77 billion. The short fall in revenues is due to the absence of bauxite levy of $147 million budgeted and grants that came in at only $67 million versus $665 million in the budget.