The FINANCIAL — United National Movement member, Roman Gotsiridze, in his speech before the Parliament of Georgia, stated: “You [Government of Georgia] are still inconsistently spending the state budget. In two months you have to spend GEL 2.3 billion whilst average monthly spending was GEL 800-900 million.”
FactCheck took interest in the accuracy of the statement.
In accordance with the 2017 State Budget of Georgia, the planned amount of expenses (total expenditures) is set at GEL 11,415 million. As of the first nine months of 2017, actual expenses constitute GEL 8,168.4 million which is 95.94% of the nine-month plan.
On 20 November 2017, the State Treasury published the ten-month budget fulfilment figures. According to this information, the amount of total incurred expenses constitutes GEL 9,121 million. Therefore, in accordance with the budget plan, GEL 1,147 million on average should be spent in November-December which is relatively high as compared to the average figure (GEL 907.6 million) of the previous months. According to the State Treasury’s daily operative data, the amount of incurred expenses is GEL 10,397 million as of 17 November 2017. Therefore, approximately GEL 1 billion has to be spent before the end of the year.
At the same time, of necessary note is that absolutely equal budget spending for respective time periods is practically impossible and budget spending is usually relatively higher in the last months of the accounting period.
As illustrated by the table, the nine-month planned amount constitutes 69.6% of the annual plan in the period of 2010-2013. Since 2014, the nine-month plan has always been higher, reaching the 74% mark, which indicates that measures were taken for a more balanced spending of the budget. The tendency of improvement of performance is visible in regard to the actual fulfilment of the budget as well. The 2017 figure (74.6%) taken separately is very high and as there is no lagging behind the quarterly plan, it is groundless to assert that the budget is spent unequally. Of additional note is that the quarterly plan fulfilment figure is high as well. At first glance, these figures are lower as compared to the figures registered in the previous years. However, up until 2014 the Ministry of Finance used to amend the quarterly plans in accordance with the budget fulfilment trends which provided an opportunity to artificially increase the budget fulfilment figure. This practice has become non-existent since 2014.
Conclusion
Roman Gotsiridze’s figures are factually accurate. The amount of money to spend in November-December is GEL 2.3 billion whilst the average spending in the previous months was GEL 912 million on average. However, it is practically impossible to divide the budget expenses equally for the respective periods of time; moreover, a relatively high concentration of expenses at the end of the year is a usual occurrence. The share of the first nine months of expenses constitutes 74.6% of the total annual payments for 2017 which is an acceptable performance taking into account historical trends. The budget plan fulfilment rate (96%) is sufficiently high as well. Therefore, making claims about the unequal spending of the budget is groundless provided that the budget expenses do not increase for the remainder of the year
FactCheck concludes that Roman Gotsiridze’s statement is MOSTLY FALSE.
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