Muscat – The Ministry of Finance has issued guidelines to all the ministries, government departments and public sector institutions to submit their proposals for the budget 2019.
The government and public sector departments were urged to avoid increasing their budgets and focus rationalising expenditure and rearranging priorities in line with the available financial resources.
The main focus of the general budget 2019 will be on reducing the deficit and debt and rationalising public expenditure, among other requirements.
The ministry stressed the need to maintain basic priority areas for citizens - such as health, education, electricity, water and social security – and focus on focus on diversifying the sources of income and increasing the contribution of non-oil revenues.
The MoF has set specific rules, calling upon all ministries, government units and public institutions when preparing their budget proposals.
They should submit in detail the objectives and targets to be achieved through the budget estimates for 2019 compared with what was achieved through the allocations of 2017 and 2018. Private sector:
The public sector entities that have private-sector partnership projects should update the Ministry of Finance with that data, indicating the amount required for meeting contractual obligations.
They should also identify new projects and services that can be assigned to the private sector.
The public sector should obtain the approval of the Ministry of Finance before entering into any contracts with the private sector.
Public institutions should reduce and rationalise spending as much as possible, especially in the areas that are not directly related to overall productivity improvement.
They should implement the policy of linking wages to productivity and optimising the available capacities and resources so as to achieve maximum productivity under proper economic management.
The preservation of the developmental levels and the institutional achievements achieved by development should be the main objectives of the 2019 budget project.
The budget estimates will keep into account the status of annual bonus payable to employees on 1/1/2019 (in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations). It should take into account a detailed statement of the vacant job positions (in all grades), including the positions that have become vacant as a result of the retirement and or expected to become vacant in 2019.