Government’s Consolidated Fund between January and April registered a deficit of €77.5 million.

The National Statistics Office said that compared to last year, recurrent revenue registered an increase of €14.3 million while total expenditure went down by €16.8 million. This resulted in a positive change in the Government’s Consolidated Fund of €31.1 million.

Recurrent revenue was recorded at €1,063 million, up from €1,048.7 million last year. The comparative increase of 1.4 per cent was the result of higher income tax, social security (€26.9 million) and licenses, taxes and fines (€21.7 million), among others. Conversely, a major decline was recorded in proceeds from grants.

Total expenditure stood at €1,140.5 million down from €1,157.3 million last year mainly as result of lower spending on capital expenditure and interest payments which were partially offset by higher outlays on recurrent expenditure.

Recurrent Expenditure stood at €996.2 million from €948.1 million last year. This was due to higher outlays on all components of recurrent expenditure whereby contributions to government entities went up by €15 million followed by added personal emoluments (€12.5 million) and operational and maintenance expenses (€11.5 million).

The interest component of the public debt servicing costs stood at €77 million, down from €78.4 million last year.

Government’s capital expenditure witnessed a decline of €63.5 million, and was recorded at €67.3 million. This was primarily the result of lower spending on EU funded projects mainly in the environment and agriculture sector.

At the end of April, central government debt stood at €5,591.4 million, up by €227.3 million over the same period last year.