As is required under the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act, the 2017 Mid-Year Financial Report, detailing the performance of the economy for the first half of fiscal year 2017, was on Friday last presented to the National Assembly by Finance Minister Winston Jordan.
Its contents have revealed that the country’s export earnings continue to decline, with gold now joining the list of commodities on the decline.
Minister Jordan has had to again revise downwards his overall projection for national growth. He reports that despite the “historically early budget, the required shift in planning cycles at the sectoral levels failed to keep pace… growth for the year has been revised to 3.1 per cent from 3.8 per cent.”
The Finance Minister has also reported: “Spending was less than one-third of the budgeted allocation.”
