The 2022 Estimates of the Revenues and Expenditure for St Vincent and the Grenadines was presented in the House of Assembly yesterday, amounting to EC1.3 billion dollars.
The estimates were presented by Minister of Finance Camillo Gonsalves which he says represents a 9.6 per cent increase over the approved budget for 2021.
The Budget is broken down as follows: Recurrent expenditure, $931 million, Capital expenditure, $397 million.
The minister said financing for the 2022 budget is expected to come from current revenue of 677 million and capital receipts totalling 651 million dollars.
As of September 30, 2021, SVG’s total Public Debt amounted to just over 2.8 billion dollars, which represents a 13.1 per cent increase over the total disbursed outstanding public debt for the comparative period in 2020.
The total Domestic Debt which amounted to 525.4 million as of the end of September 2021 decreased by 1.6 per cent or $8.7 million when compared with the same period in 2020.
External Debt stood at $1.56 billion, an increase of 19.2 per cent or 251 million when compared with the same period in September 2020.
Opposition leader Dr Godwin Friday in response to presentation expressed concern about how the Budget will be financed.
He made it clear the citizens of St Vincent and the Grenadines cannot afford any more taxes.
“The economy could do with a boost, they are feeling pain, they need hope they don’t need mirages. They need honesty to know what they are facing forward,” said Friday.