RAMALLAH, December 27, 2016 (WAFA) – Minister of Finance and Planning Shurki Bishara Tuesday told the Palestinian cabinet that 2017 budget has been set at $4.48 billion

He said $4.1 billion will go for current expenditures and $350 million for development.

However, the budget will have a deficit of $465 million or $39 million a month not counting expected delays of $300 million, which means the government will have to adopt austerity measures to cover the gap in finances by cutting down on monthly expenditure, said Bishara.

According to the budget, wages and salaries are expected to increase by 3 per cent in comparison to 2016 and revenues are expected to reach around $3.4 billion, up 6 per cent from 2016 budget.

The cabinet said that donor aid has declined to a large degree in 2016 to reach $614 million when previous annual foreign aid was usually $1.1 billion.

Bishara told the cabinet that his ministry was able to make a leap forward in increasing revenues and cutting on expenditure in 2016.

He said revenues reached 12.95 million Israeli shekels ($3.36 million), which was 11 per cent more than what was anticipated in the budget.

Clearance revenues reached 9 billion shekels ($2.33 billion), higher by 8 per cent than anticipated in the budget.

Expenditure was also higher than anticipated in the budget by 5 per cent, said the minister, breaking it into 7.8 billion shekels ($2 billion) for wages and salaries, which was 2.4 per higher. None wages expenditure reached 7 billion shekels ($1.8 billion) up by 5.7 per cent.

Bishara said the government also paid $370 million as part of outstanding debt to the private sector.

M.K.