Members of Parliament yesterday passed the Budget Law for the Financial Year 2018/19, effectively giving the final nod to the country’s next budget.

The budget execution starts next month on July 1.

The final approval of the budget law by the legislators put an end to discussions about the budget proposals for the next financial year which had started in April when government tabled the 2018/19 – 2020/21 Budget Framework Paper in the House.

Estimated at slightly over Rwf2.4 trillion, the budget for the next fiscal year has focused on supporting local industries to boost local production and empowering young people to create jobs.

It was designed under the theme of "Industrialisation for Job Creation and Shared Prosperity” to emphasize the government’s will to invest in supporting local industries to boost their production and empower young people with job creation skills.

The Chairperson of the parliamentary Committee on National Budget and Patrimony, Constance Mukayuhi Rwaka, told Parliament yesterday that her committee has found the budget to be well prepared, taking care of all the country’s priorities for economic and social transformation.

"We believe that the budget will make its intended impact if well managed,” Mukayuhi said.

The new budget is up 16 percent in comparison to outgoing financial year, with domestically generated funds increasing about 13 percent while money collected from domestic taxes will also be up 13 percent.

The budget will be domestically funded at the tune of 84 percent as the Government expects to finance 68 per cent of the 2018-19 budget through domestic resources, 16 per cent through loans and expects 16 per cent to come from grants.

The Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Uzziel Ndagijimana, has said that the budget is well in line with the country’s vision to be self-reliant by increasing domestic production, efficiently collecting taxes for nation building, and relying less on foreign aid.

Ndagijimana told the media shortly after the budget law was passed that the next step will be ensuring that what has been laid out is well executed.

"The next step after this law is passed will be implementation of the budget by following up on activities that have been planned. There are many development projects, more than 700 of them, that need follow up and we will need to ensure that government resources are well managed,” he said.

Out of the Rwf2.4 trillion that the government has planned to spend in the next fiscal year, recurrent expenditure (money used to run government’s day-to-day activities) will be Rwf 1,226.1 billion while the development budget (funds to be invested in development projects) is estimated at Rwf936.6 billion.

Funds in the development budget will mainly go into boosting the government’s youth employment programmes where it is planned that 216,000 off-farm jobs will be created as the youth learning new skills will be given tool-kit packages upon graduation while their internships will also be funded.

The government also wants to invest in building roads, increasing irrigation projects, building new and repairing key electricity transmission lines, improve water supply in both rural and urban areas, and build hospitals and classrooms among other priorities.

It has planned that spending of the total budget for the next fiscal year will go into funding three pillars. The economic pillar takes the lion’s share of 57 per cent of the budget, social welfare claiming 27 percent, while good governance takes 16 per cent.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw