By Libya Herald reporter.
Malta, 14 January 2015:
The government announced that it expects that the 2015 budget would be ready by March.
The . . .[restrict]announcement was made at yesterday’s cabinet meeting of Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni’s government, the only internationally recognized government in Libya, in the eastern city of Al-Beida.
Making the declaration, the Finance Minister said that the budget had been approved in October 2014, but that in reality nothing to date from it has been disbursed to the government.
The Minister went on to say that the 2016 budget would be a ‘’realistic’’ budget based on realistic figures based on current crude oil prices, which he explained were now less than US$ 50 per barrel compared to the 2014 estimates.
The Finance Minister also added that the 2016 budget would be based on a realistic estimate of the amounts of crude oil expected to be exported in the current circumstances, which is a significant decrease from what was expected.
As part of the discussion on budgetary issues and in line with government policy to cut outgoings, the cabinet meeting also discussed the problem of the duplication of wages in the public sector and subsidies.
On the desire to reduce the subsidies bill, the cabinet meeting also discussed reviewing the number of Libyans registered in food cooperatives that distribute the subsidized staple foods such as flour, pasta, couscous, sugar, cooking oil etc.
It was decided that the duplication of cooperative members needed to be tackled as well as the smuggling of these subsidized goods to Libya’s neighbouring states in order to ensure the continued supplies of goods to Libyan citizens.
At the cabinet meeting, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs was singled out for its efforts in eliminating the duplication of salaries by using the National ID Number and that it had reached a completion rate of 60 percent in this project. [/restrict]
