Due to the coronavirus crisis, Tajikistan over the ten months of last year had spent on health care two times more than the last year’s revised budget projected for this sector.
According to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Tajikistan spent 3.6 billion somonis on the health care sector in January-October last year, which was two times more than it was earmarked.
Recall, the Government of Tajikistan revised revenues and expenditures of the national budget for 2020 in June last year due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The budget reportedly received revenues less than it was originally planned, and therefore, the budget’s revenue and expenditure parts were revised.
As it had been reported earlier, revenues of Tajikistan’s national budget for 2020 were projected to stand at more than 26 billion somonis and its expenditures were projected to stand at more than 26.4 million somonis.
The expenditure part of the budget was not fulfilled and practically all sectors received funds less than it was originally planned. Funding of public health, public management, education as well as culture and sports was cut significantly.
Therefore, parameters of the budget for 2020 were revised in June.
The total volume of the revised budget revenue part was projected to stand at 23.6 million somonis instead of previously planned 26.1 billion somonis. The revised budget expenditure part was projected to stand at 26 billion somonis, which was 400 million somonis fewer than it was originally planned.
The budget deficit was projected to stand at 3.1 billion somonis, which is 3.7 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), instead of the previously projected 350 million somonis (0.4 percent of GDP).
To cover such a huge deficit, the government had to use loans and grants received from the international financial institutions as well as part of the country’s gold reserves.
