Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: Sustainability of state public finance was among the issues reviewed at a meeting of the Financial Affairs and Energy Resources Council.
The Council held its fourth meeting of the year on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Darwish bin Ismail bin Ali Al Balushi, Minister Responsible for Financial Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Council.
The Council reviewed a circular on the factors affecting the sustainability of the state public finance and striking a balance between expenditure and public revenues taking into consideration the available financial resources and the size of the safe deficit and public debt level. It approved a number of measures and procedures that aim at ensuring financial stability and improving the credit rating of the Sultanate.
It also reviewed a report on the urgent additional requests by the public departments in the 2018 budget and took necessary decisions towards them. The Board also discussed a circular about privatising service activities at the public units and developing partnership with the private sector. It called for expediting the activation of the privatisation programme and referring some activities carried out by the government to the private sector.
The Board also reviewed the outcomes of the comprehensive review for the decisions about specifying the fees, credit and financial insurance and guarantees collected by the municipal organisations taking into consideration the different views about them. The Board approved the extension of the grace period to January 1st 2019 for applying the amended fees.
It also reviewed some reports on oil, gas and petrochemical industries and took appropriate decisions in their regard.
