Oman adds regulations for 2019 budget to rationalise spending

Muscat: Oman's Ministry of Finance has put in place a package of precautionary measures for the State budget for the fiscal year 2019, to cope with the effects of continued fluctuation of oil prices and increasing fiscal deficits.
The ministry has called on all governmental units not to increase the scope of their budget and to rationalise spending in line with the available financial resources, according to the ministry report.
"The main foundation for the preparation of the State Budget draft for the fiscal year 2019 is to continue reducing the budget deficit and contain it in safe limits, reduce the high level of public debt, and complete the stages of transformation to implement the budget and performance programme,” the report said.
It also stressed on the importance of improving the business environment to raise investment rates and create job opportunities for citizens, and to seek economic growth of not less than 3 per cent at the fixed prices on average during the Ninth Five-Year Plan.
It also included the need to pay attention to maintenance allocations to maintain the developmental achievements achieved over the past decades, raise the efficiency of the state-owned economic institutions, enhance their performance in the national economy, and expand the participation of the private sector.
“The Ministry of Finance has set specific rules calling upon all ministries, government units and public bodies and institutions when preparing their budget projects. They requested an explanatory memorandum on the objectives, targets and indicators expected to be achieved through the budget estimates for 2019 compared to what was achieved in 2017 and 2018,” the ministry further said.
With regard to private sector partnership projects, it requires public entities that have private-sector partnership projects to update their data with the Ministry of Finance, to indicate the amounts that the budget requires to be included to meet participation contracts, and to identify new projects and services that can be assigned to the private sector.
The ministry also called on government entities to reduce and rationalise spending as much as possible, especially in the elements that are not directly related to production, to raise the efficiency of workers and to implement the policy of linking wages to production.