By: Mohamed M. Sesay
On Monday the 31st of July 2023, honorable Members of the Sixth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone unanimously passed into law the 2023 Supplementary Budget Act. The Supplementary Appropriation Act 2023 is now an Act meant to authorise expenditure from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the services of Sierra Leone for 2023.
During Second Reading of the 2023 Supplementary Budget before it was passed into law, the Minister of Finance Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura, reminded Members of Parliament that his predecessor presented the original 2023 Government Budget and Statement of Economic and Financial Policies to the House of Parliament on November 11, 2022. Following intensive debate, he added that the Fifth Parliament then approved the Budget on December 20, 2022, which paved the way for the commencement of the implementation of the Budget in January 2023.
The Finance Minister intimated that the macroeconomic assumptions on which the original revenue and expenditure projections were based no longer hold. He said the original 2023 budget was based on the macroeconomic framework agreed with the IMF during the fifth review of our performance under the ongoing programme with the IMF Extended Credit Facility in November 2022. The macroeconomic framework was revised during the combined sixth and seventh reviews in May 2023. He said the revised macro-framework formed the basis of the revenue and expenditure projections in this Supplementary Budget.
Sheku Ahmed Fantamadi Bangura contextualized that the Supplementary Budget aims at reducing the budget deficit from 9.6 percent of GDP in 2022 to 5.4 percent of GDP in 2023. This in turn, assured that it would reduce the borrowing requirement of Government especially from the banking system, thereby complementing the efforts of the Bank of Sierra Leone (BSL) in containing inflation, slowing down the depreciation of the Leone and reducing the pace of debt accumulation.
“Mr. Speaker, Honourable Members, in view of the foregoing and consistent with section 42, sub-section (1) of the Public Financial Management Act, 2016, I hereby present the Supplementary Budget proposals for the financial year 2023 to this Noble House for consideration and approval”, he said.
The Finance Minister also intimated Members of Parliament that Sierra Leone economy continues to grapple with the spillovers of the Ukraine crisis and associated global economic uncertainty, culminating into weak domestic economic activity, rising inflation, exchange rate depreciation, and higher debt levels. The implications of these developments on domestic revenue collection and expenditure management cannot be underestimated.
After the debate of the 2023 Supplementary Budget bill by Members of Parliament, the said bill was read by the Minister of Finance for the third time and was unanimously passed into law by Honorable Members of the Sixth Parliament.