KUWAIT CITY, Nov 15: Kuwait’s general budget deficit jumped about 15.4 times in just one month after an increase in August by KD 768 million, Al-Rai daily reported. According to statistics issued by the Ministry of Finance, the budget deficit amounted to about KD 818.1 million during the period from April to August, of which KD 49.9 million were recorded during the period from the beginning of April to the end of July.

This means the deficit rose by about 15.4 percent in the month of August alone. The figures showed that the total budget revenues collected during the first five months of the 2021/2022 fiscal year amounted to about KD 6.75 billion, constituting 61.8 percent of the estimated KD 10.9 billion in the budget for the entire fiscal year. The oil revenues during the first five months of the current fiscal year reached KD 6.09 billion, constituting 66.7 percent of the estimate in the full budget, which amounted to about KD 9.12 billion.

The actual non-oil revenues recorded were KD 664.47 million, which constituted 36.9 percent of the estimated budget for the full fiscal year. As for the expenditures and commitments, the state spent about KD 7.57 billion - 5 billion for expenditures and KD 2.21 for commitments. This made the total expenditures and actual commitments in five months to constitute only 32.9 percent of the estimated budget for the current fiscal year. Total capital spending during the same period amounted to about KD 255.71 million, or about 9.8 percent of the budgeted estimate of KD 2.62 billion.