Minister for Economy Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum says budgetary support provided by development partners and other countries is not extra cash lying around and it helps lower the total debt in the budget.
He highlighted this when asked by NFP Parliamentarian Lenora Qereqeretabua if the $115 million budgetary support by Australia and New Zealand will be spent on direct cash assistance for families affected by COVID-19.
Sayed-Khaiyum says every year there is a deficit in the National Budget which has to be balanced by borrowing and when a development partner provides budget support, they are helping us fund existing programs.
Sayed-Khaiyum says these funds would help displace the loan that government would have had to take in order to fund the current programs.
He says the total support given by Australia is around $59.2 million where $31.1 million was specifically for Social Welfare support.
The Minister for Economy says this means that the projected debt level at the end of the financial year 2020/2021 would be lower than expected.
Sayed-Khaiyum has also highlighted that there may be times when a development partner chooses to ensure that a certain portion of the budget is allocated to a specific program. He says the Fijian Government provides regular reports to development partners indicating how funds have been used.
Sayed-Khaiyum says the question by Qereqeretabua demonstrates a lack of understanding of how government finances and actual budget support works.
He says there is a lot of misunderstanding about it and unfortunately some people in the parliamentary chamber are very good advocates of misinformation on social media.
Qereqeretabua says her question was very simple because people want to know how much of that money will be coming to them.
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