SAC Vice Chairman Deputy Prime Minister Vice-Senior General Soe Win addresses coordination meeting on submission of supplemental budget accounts of Union for financial year 2023-2024
Nay Pyi Taw November 30
A coordination meeting to submit supplemental budget accounts of the Union for financial year 2023-2024 was held at the State Administration Council Chairman’s Office here this afternoon, addressed by Vice Chairman of Financial Commission SAC Vice Chairman Deputy Prime Minister Vice Senior General Soe Win. Also present were SAC member Lt-Gen Nyo Saw, Union Minister U Win Shein, Union Auditor-General Dr Khin Naing Oo, Deputy Minister U Maung Maung Win and officials. Union level officials, union ministers, deputy ministers and officials attended the meeting through video conferencing.
The Vice-Senior General said the government is implementing the Union Budget Law for FY 2023-2024 which was approved and enacted on 31 March 2023. While implementing the law, union level departments and organizations identified income targets and additional funds for the financial year. There may also be expenditures included in the law and mandatory additional expenditures. The approval for FY 2023-2024 supplemental budget must be pass[1]ed through different steps of verification and the requested departments and organizations shall use the funds only after the SAC has promulgated the additional budget allotment law.
The Ministry of Planning and Finance checked their requests through different stages and the advanced verification com[1]mittee set up in accord with the directive of the Head of State also checked them as per the State policy.
The State is systematically verifying and using sector-wiseprioritized funds for national economic development and socio-economic progress of the people. The government is properly approving the expenditures for disaster damages including rehabilitation funds for the losses caused by Mocha cyclone that hit the country on 14 May 2023 in time. It also permitted the dutiful civil servants to enjoy additional allowance starting from October 2023 to help ease their basic needs.
According to the report presented by MoPF, supplemental funds were requested mainly for the taxes payable to the State, financial contributions to the State, additional allowance for civil servants, security budget, and development under takings that can be completed within the financial year. During the different stages of the verification process, the minimum amount for category-wise expenditures has been ascertained.
In the state of the Union budget for the fiscal year of 2023- 2024 and the original estimated budget, the GDP value of the whole country is Ks -138,195.703 billion. As for the surplus and deficit comparison on the ordinary capital liabilities, the comparison of the deficit with the GDP was found to be 5.65 percent in terms of amount. When this was checked by the relevant scrutiny teams at different levels, finally, it was found that there was no change in GDP, but the ratio of deficit to GDP was reduced from 5.65 to 5.31 percent.
Therefore, if it is impossible for departments and organizations to spend the allocated funds for the tasks according to the regional situation, they are to present it at the meeting.
If there are cases that can increase the revenue and if expenses need to be further reduced from the approved funds, they need to report on them at this meeting openly. After they have been approved at today's meeting, they will be further discussed and negotiated with chief ministers of regions and states concerned and submitted to the Financial Commission led by the Prime Minister. Therefore, if there are any further reports to be presented regarding the information verified step by step by the ministrywise committees, it is to present them at today's meeting and if there is any amount of expenditure that can be reduced, it is to continue to present it.
After that, Chairman of the Pre-Scrutiny Committee of Union and Region or State Budgets and Member of SAC Lt-Gen Nyo Saw briefed on the pre-scrutiny of supplementary budgets of the Union and Regions/States, difficulties of ministries and organizations to implement tasks according to the current situations in regions concerned, low percentage in capacity of carrying out the tasks until additional funds are requested, the situation in which the funds can be transferred for spending, and coordination measures taken based on the state of important tasks for the fund that can be transferred from the general surplus fund.
Afterwards, Secretary of the Commission Union Minister U Win Shein briefed on completion of scrutinizing the stati[1]stics on the Union additional funds for the fiscal year of 2023- 2024, Deputy Minister U Maung Maung Win on the statistics on the Union additional funds for the fiscal year of 2023-2024 and Union Auditor-General Dr Khin Naing Oo on the budgets and related auditing measures.
Then, Union-level organizations and union ministries had sector-wise discussions and the Secretary of the Financial Commission joined the discussions.
Later, the Vice-Senior General made coordination on the discussions and gave concluding remarks.