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Ministry of Finance clarifies "prior Commitments" included in the General Budget Law

28/06/2018

The Ministry of Finance said that the previous commitment item that is included annually in the budget law has proven to show more transparency of the government financial statements.

The ministry pointed out that as of 2016, a dedicated item has been included within the budget law labeled as "previous Commitments". Its allocation covers the value of some owed expenses that were not paid in the previous year. This item is mainly used in medical treatments for non-insured and receivables caused by land acquisition and income and sales tax rebates, In addition to electricity and fuel bills of some government departments.

This measure comes in order to provide greater transparency in the financial statements and to show the value of these expenses, which is difficult to estimate when preparing the budget law annually, hence was not previously included in a separate item.

With regard to the amounts disbursed during the last two years under the item "prior Commitments", the government has spent JD 83.5 million in 2016 out of the JD 150 million allocated in the budget Law, while spending under this item for the 2017 reached JD 186.0 million out of the allocated JD 360 million in Budget Law for the same year.

It is worth mentioning that the final accounts issued by the Ministry of Finance at the end of each year, based on Article 112 of the Constitution "to provide the final accounts to the National Assembly within six months of the end of the previous fiscal year," are audited by the Audit Bureau and they show the actual expenditure that is spent annually for all Budget items including previous Commitments.

As for the provisions of the General Budget Law of 2018 specified to the item "Prior Commitments", a total of JD 360 million has been allocated this year. The total expenditure under this item reached JD 98.2 million until the end of May.  Therefore the total value of the amounts allocated to the item "prior commitments" in the general budget law for the years 2016_2018 amounted to JD 870 million, while the actual spent value reached JD 367.7 million until the end of May and as follows:

 

Total/ ( Million JD)

2018/May

2017

2016

Item      

870.0

360.0

360.0

150.0

Allocated Prior commitments

367.7

98.2

186.0

83.5

Expenditures

As for the years 2019-2020, the item "Prior Commitments" is an indicative item that has not yet been spent and can be re-evaluated in the preparation of the Budget Law for the following year.

As for the item of (other expenditures), which is stated in the General Budget Law annually, the ministry indicated that it covers items that do not have an independent classification within the General Budget Law. They cover miscellaneous expenses for multiple purposes and include the actual expenditure spent annually in this item within the final account issued at the beginning of the following year, a copy of which to be sent to both the National Assembly and the Audit Bureau.


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