State expenditure falls by 6.4 percent

Stater expenditure has been reduced by 6.4 percent after the impact of COVID-19 closed up sources of income.

The income of the state, when compared with the same period last year, shows that the government earned MVR 394.8 million in June 2020. The figure is from the fiscal statistics of the Finance Ministry and includes foreign aid as well. This is a fall of 78.2 percent when compared with the same period last year. The state earned MVR 1.8 million for the same period last year.

The fall was due to a reduction in tax income. Finance Ministry said that a reduction of MVR 1.1 billion was observed when compared with the same period last year. Income from other sources, apart from taxes, show a reduction of MVR 297.8 million.

The figure means that a reduction of 6.4 million was observed in government expenditure when compared with June 2019. Recurrent expenditure for June 2019 stood at MVR 8.9 billion while this year, the figure stands at MVR 9.2 billion.

Capital expenditure for June 2019 was MVR 3.5 billion while this year, the figure stands at MVR 3.3 billion.

The government paid MVR 549.6 million as debt repayments in the same period last year, while this year, the state had paid MVR 534.6 billion as loan repayments. The fiscal deficit for June stands at MVR 1.7 billion.