The minister of Finance, Vera Daves, ruled out Friday in Luanda the possibility of revision of the 2023 General State Budget (OGE),
According to the Finance minister, for August the government chose to captivate expenses, while the staff is already working on the draft for the State Budget for 2024.
The General State Budget for 2023 will record, by the end of the year, a deficit of around 10 billion dollars, according to projections recently presented by the government.
These projections result from the analysis carried out by the Ministry of Finance on the execution of the General State Budget (OGE) 2023, which assumes the price of a barrel of oil at USD 75, a production of 1 180 thousand barrels of oil per day.
The Ministry of Finance found that in the first half of this year, during the execution of the OGE, that a deficit balance and a budget deficit had been generated.
This scenario is based on the fact that the country recorded an oil production of around 900,000 barrels per day, over a period of almost two months, fluctuations in the price of a barrel on the international market, which reached below USD 75, benchmark of the OGE 2023, the increase in interest rates in international markets that continue to rise.
Angola has external financing contracts at a variable interest rate, which in the current context sees an increase in rates that are linked to the exchange rate.
In the meeting that Vera Daves had with journalists, in the traditional “press breakfast”, she said that the OGE2024, whose elements have already been approved by the Cabinet council, will be prepared based on a set of results to be defined, both on the revenue side or on the expendiure side.
She added that this process will allow the Government to gain time, while working on the draft of the 2024 State Budget (OGE).
With creditors, especially the local banking sector, the dialogue continues with a view to finding solutions that manage to lengthen the maturity and lower the cost of the debt, so that, eventually, the “pressure” on debt treasury is also reduced.
“All of this is an exercise that is not easy if, at the same time, we have to carry out a set of infrastructure projects that citizens need and that will bring a new debt”, Vera Daves pointed out, who expressed awareness of existing pressure towards a return to indebtedness scenarios.
For this reason, she considers that the exercise should be for everyone (budgetary units) to carefully define projects so that the Executive can carry out the limit of what is necessary, with actions that help to leverage the economy.
Source: Angola Press News Agency (APNA)