Government finalizes budget discussion at Political Review Committee
In compliance with the political commitment of the Eight Constitutional Government to continue to contribute to transforming Timor-Leste from a low-income country to a medium-high income country, the Political Review Committee (best known by the acronym CROP, Political Budgetary Review Committee) finalized the discussion on the national priorities that will be highlighted in the General State budget (OGE) for 2020. The CROP work took place between 9 and 23 September 2019, in the Xanana Gusmão Auditorium of the Ministry of Finance.
The establishment of the Political Review Committee was approved, as provided for in Decree-Law No. 22/2015, at the meeting of the Council of Ministers of September 11, with the aim of verifying the strategic allocation of resources towards achieving the commitments and objectives contained in the strategic documents and to assess the feasibility of the plans for the financial year 2020.
The CROP is chaired by the Prime Minister and also includes the Acting Minister of Finance, the Acting Minister of State Administration and the Acting Minister for Economic Affairs.
The expenditure ceiling for the OGE of 2020, totaling 1.6 billion US dollars, previously approved by the Council of Ministers, also needs adjustments in order to cover all the needs of the program and all activities of the Ministries and State Institutions for the year 2020. For this reason, the ministries and institutions have presented and justified to the CROP their additional proposals to adjust the expense of 2020.
CROP reviewed each budget proposal and invited the relevant ministries and institutions to defend and justify each proposal. After evaluating all the budget proposals, CROP will continue the preparation of the budget to be presented and approved in the Council of Ministers.
On the last day of the discussion, CROP took positive steps in filtering the proposals from the ministerial lines and other relevant institutions of the State and made a final assessment of the additional proposals presented. The Ministry of Finance will now make the final update of the budget proposal, to be presented at the Council of Ministers, on 27 September 2019. After the approval of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Finance may initiate the preparation of supplementary documents, in particular books I to VI of the budget, to be presented in the national parliament on 15 October 2019, in accordance with the Budgetary and Financial Management Law, which stipulates the timetable for submission.
The Government has defined three priority areas of action for the definition of the 2020 OGE: the development of social capital, focusing on education and training, health and supply of drinking water and basic sanitation infrastructures; Economic development with a focus on encouraging private sector investment, job creation, economic diversification and development of the agriculture sector; and the increase in national connectivity with the development of ports, airports, rural and urban roads and the development of national logistics with the creation of processing and storage infrastructures and the improvement of maritime, land and air transport.
According to the general Director of Finance of the State, the Ministry of Finance, Januario da Gama "Additional proposals must be allocated according to the sequence of national priorities. Then we can assess the budget itself which should concentrate on the most important sectors, such as the social capital sector, the economy, the infrastructure and the institutional sector".
Januário da Gama added that "there is a possibility of increasing the value of the expenditure ceiling initially approved, because there is a set of new political commitments that have to have a response in the budget of 2020".
