Government spending shot up by €125 million in the first four months of the year, with increased outlays on social security benefits, medicines and surgical materials and the feed-in tariff among the key contributors.
The €125.4 million increase was slightly offset by a €8.3 million increase in recurrent revenue and resulted in a €117.1 million decline in the government’s consolidated fund between January and April.
Figures released by the National Statistics Office on Friday show how recurrent revenue for the year stood at €1,229.6 million at the end of that period – a 0.7 per cent increase.
Income from VAT and income tax both rose by €26.2 million and €23.2 million respectively, with other increases recorded for social security (€19.1 million), licences, taxes and fines (€17.1 million) reimbursements (€5.2 million) and dividends on investment (€4.7 million).
Conversely, decreases were mainly recorded in grants (€66.8 million), Central Bank of Malta (€9.0 million), fees of office (€7.1 million) and rents (€4.4 million).
But the real shift was on the expenditure side, with added outlays on recurrent expenditure, capital expenditure and interest expenditure resulting in the state forking out €1,325.5 million between January and April.
Recurrent expenditure recorded the largest increase in total terms, rising by more than €100 million to reach €1,157.6 million.
The main contributors to this increase were added outlays due to social security benefits (€18.9 million), medicines and surgical materials (€12.2 million), state contribution (€10.1 million which also features as revenue), feed in tariff (€10.0 million), treasury pensions (€7.0 million), provision of spare capacity (€3.5 million), health concession agreements (€2.8 million), church schools (€2.0 million), residential private care (€1.9 million), Jobsplus programmes (€1.5 million) and child care for all (€1.3 million).
Contributions to Government Entities and Operational and Maintenance Expenses increased by €9.1 million and €1.0 million respectively.
Capital expenditure also rose by €15.6 million to reach €93.2 million, mainly due to a €21.2 million outlay towards the treasury clearance fund.
The Treasury Clearance Fund contains all funds and accounts with expenses which are initially defrayable out of public funds and which are eventually repayable from the Consolidated Fund or other sources.
Spending on a national identity management system (€4.3 million) and the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (€3.5 million) also contributed to the capital expenditure total, with lower outlays recorded for investment incentives (€7.0 million), ICT core services agreement (€6.8 million) and construction works and equipment (€1.8 million).
The interest component of the public debt servicing costs stood at €74.7 million, up from €74.1 million last year.
At the end of April, central government debt stood at €5,381.4 million –€232.2 million less than 12 months prior.