The Finance Minister presented the National Budget of more than Nu 80bn for the financial year 2021-2022 in the National Assembly today. Of the total, the government has allocated more than Nu 35bn for recurrent expenditure and Nu 38bn as capital expenditure. The finance minister said that the budget was formulated based on the theme of “ensuring sustained economic stability for a resilient recovery.”
The financial year 2021-2022 budget has five objectives to achieve the theme. They are maintaining public confidence, sustaining economic activities, transforming the health and education system, leveraging on ICT and innovation and, enabling reform initiatives.
The highest budget allocated remains education and health. Nu 15bn has been allocated for education sector and more than Nu 9bn for health. These two constitute 30 % of the total allocation. This financial year, the government has also provisioned Nu 3bn for COVID-19 response.
“Four per cent of the allocation of Nu 3bn is allocated for COVID-19 response. Of that Nu 2bn is for general reserve and the rest Nu 1bn is to procure PPE, test kits and for quarantine facilities,” said Finance Minister Namgay Tshering.
It is followed by 27 per cent each for Economic and Public Services which includes agriculture, communications and roads among many and, 24 per cent for General Public Services which includes local government, constitutional bodies and immigration among others.
During the financial year 2021-22, the domestic revenue is estimated to grow by 7 per cent compared to the previous year.
“Domestic revenue is estimated at Nu 35bn of which 64 per cent is tax revenue and 36 per cent is non-tax revenue,” Lyonpo added.
In addition, more than Nu 5bn is for loan repayment which includes external and domestic borrowings and around Nu 900 M for on-lending, lending the borrowed money to third parties.
Sangay Chezom/Samten Dolkar
