Gov’t doubles the budget for pandemic intervention spending

Gov’t doubles the budget for pandemic intervention spending

Cambodia’s government has just adjusted its expenditure budget for Covid-19 pandemic intervention by double, as it continues on its ambitious goal to get the target population vaccinated and ensure treatment service to Covid-19 patients.

The Report on the First Semester Budget Implementation and Assessment of Budget Law for 2021 from the Ministry of Economy and Finance had set the budget for Covid-19 pandemic intervention for 2021 at $719 million originally. That budget has now expanded to $1.454 billion.

The adjustment is due to projections that a significant ballooning of expenditures would be required in order to achieve success, the ministry said.

According to the report, the Covid-19 treatment program, was initially set earlier this year at only $30 million.

The ministry noted that as of June of this year, some $240 million had already been spent on the intervention programme. By the end of this year, it has predicted that an additional $500 million will be needed, bringing the total required expenditure to $740 million.

The government also added to the budget for maintaining the living stability of the poor after the lockdown measures. An additional $135 million has been added to the $200 million set earlier this year. That portion of the programme will now ring in at $335 million.

The programme for financing small and medium enterprises, previously set at $270 million, has been adjusted to $150 million to be disbursed by the end of this year or early next year.

The government has left unchanged the previously-set budget for food subsidies, the working capital programme and one for skill training and assistance to suspended workers. These amounts remain at $10 million, $160 million and $59 million respectively.

The ministry stated that to meet the revised expenditures, the government plans to use $637 million from the national savings.

It added that the government has other budget sources. These include $80 million from budgeting funds, $130 million from foreign financing and charitable funds contributed to the government of $100 million.

Prime Minister Hun Sen assured the nation on August 1 that Cambodia is not facing bankruptcy and that the country’s current revenue is about $400 million a month.

For the first seven months of this year, Cambodia generated more than $3 billion in income, of which $1.716 billion was tax income and $1.355 billion was customs income. These figures represent 75.5 percent and 56.9 percent of the yearly plan respectively, according to Mr. Hun Sen.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister cited that Cambodia had $3 billion in reserve funds prior to being hit by COVID-19. About one third of those funds have been spent. That does not include the nation’s $20 billion held in foreign reserves and its over 44 tons of gold reserves. Khmer Times