Premier announces $399M budget for 2023
Premier and Minister of Finance, Dr Natalio Wheatley has announced the estimated fiscal budget for 2023 to be $399.33 million.
According to Dr Wheatley, this figure is a decrease of $21.17 million when compared to the total revised expenditure of $420.5 million seen in the previous year.
Giving a breakdown of the figures in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, November 29, Premier Wheatley said $335.08 million will go towards recurrent expenditure while $41.59 million has been allocated for capital expenditure.
Within the recurrent expenditure allocation, Dr Wheatley said $128.92 million is allocated for employee compensation, $85.65 million is for goods and services, $81.23 million will go towards grants, $8.55 million is for property and other expenses, $1.5 million is for subsidies, $6.6 million is for interest payments, and $22.55 million will be for social benefits.
The Finance Minister further noted that $22.19 million will go towards debt servicing in 2023.
Estimated revenues for 2023 is $373.03 million. Some $352.64 million of this amount will come from taxes while $20.39 million will come from other revenue sources.
What each Ministry will receive
Premier Wheatley said the Health Ministry will receive the largest share of the recurrent allocations with $73.07 million or 18.3 per cent.
The second-largest share of the recurrent budget goes to the Ministry of Communications and Works which will receive $62.51 million or 15.65%.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth Affairs, Fisheries & Agriculture will receive 13.95 per cent or $55.7 million.
The allocation to the Governor’s Group is $52.3 million or 13.09 per cent while the Premier’s Office has been allocated $43.3 million or 10.84 per cent.
The allocation to the Ministry of Finance is $37.18 million or 9.31 per cent. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Labour is set to receive $7.77 million or 1.95 per cent.
A further breakdown of the budget will see $54 million being allocated to pensions, public debt and various contributions, while $8.67 million will be given to constitutionally established departments. Some $4.61 million will go towards miscellaneous recurrent expenses.
BVI News will provide more details in a subsequent publication.
Copyright 2024 BVI News, Media Expressions Limited. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.
Unfortunately, this will be his first and last budget because he won’t be Premier again…NOT HE!
Dr Wheatley said $128.92 million is allocated for employee compensation….Does this include the NON-CONTRIBUTORY PENSION SCHEME FOR CIVIL SERVANTS?
We are in DEEP DEEP TROUBLE!!!!!
Awesome, lets see whats NOT gonna get done out of this budget lol
You cant just budget a $26mil loss – thats heading for bankrupty! It is a tiny budget, all departments should be instructed to seek ways to increase taxes/revenues and decrease costs. Almost half of the government budget is salaries/compensation, thats a huge % . Very little allocation for maintenance of public assets. How can we afford large new capital projects if we cant afford to maintain them! I would not have proposed this budget it needs a big rethink and a big drive to increase tourism, financial services – and yes why not tax the hugely profitable large local enterprises!
The Premier has done well because most people in the BVI behave as if covid did not happen for the past three years and is still upon us and has caused serious damage to the world’s economy for which BVI is not exempted. BVI is doing good compared to even the UK and other bigger and same size countries. Sadly though, we never see the good in our people.
If we fired some of the useless Govt employees then we could reduce the ludicrously high recurring expenditure on salaries. Let’s start by firing 50% of employees and see whether there is room to fire more after a couple of months.
Hopefully we could get it down to 33% kept in work.
Good job in a tough time globally.
WE need a Pension plan soon and fast….
I never see a budget day when no body at all was interested in hearing nothing from the government. It was the worse budget day we ever encountered. People didn’t even know it was budget day. The interest is gone in the governance of our country because of these inexperienced, childish, incompetent, weak and confused people we have at the seat of leadership. We have never been in this state before.
“The difference between animals and humans is animals would never allow the dumbest in the herd lead them.” We are definitely human in allowing someone to lead us who has zero business experience, an abysmal record managing anything, and is completely tone-deaf, not hearing the plies of the people to fix our infrastructure. Even just suggesting a deficit budget is grounds for dismissal, let alone ignoring what we want first, which is a functional infrastructure
How about fixing the 3rd world roads, schools and infrastructure which you left in an state of absolute disrepair..no use blaming head coach for this one
Why don’t you address the banks and insurance companies. Can’t wait for an election to turn the page on this ugly part of our history. 393 million budget in these hard times. We just getting up our tourism back.
The dam roads are bad and you have RDA doing stupidness. What a lunatic. The danger is that you will spend, spend and when you leave office after the elections there will be such a deficit sending the country backward and a lot of people not paid.
Sl** Wande have the loot up his shoot cause the territory doesn’t have it
To all elected leaders, both in and out of finance. Please think of, look out for and make your seniors, your top prioritiess with your ew budget..
Paying all earned increments to those retired and aging seniors must be prioritized as essential, critical and crucial.
Theirlives, if to remain borderline safe, must be given their earned resources to care for themselves and medical inevitables..
Mr. Governer and Premier, please pay us our earned but unpaid salaries.