THE MINISTRY of Finance and Planning said it would include more than $3.6 billion of Jamaica's deferred financing bill in the estimates of expenditure over a two-year period.
According to a Ministry Paper tabled in Parliament yesterday, of the $11.7 billion approved by the Finance Ministry under the deferred financing programme, $6.6 billion has been disbursed by participating providers to contractors islandwide.
Of that amount, the Ministry Paper said, $3.6 billion "will be included in the final supplementary estimates for the years up to FY 2002/2003 and in the 2003/2004 estimates of expenditure."
However, the list of projects appended to the Ministry Paper only shows costs amounting to $1.53 billion over those two years.
Officials at the Ministry were not reached for comment last evening and the Ministry Paper did not explain how much of the $3.6 billion was accounted for during the 2002/2003 financial year. Additionally, the list of projects appended to the Ministry Paper only shows costs amounting to $1.53 billion over the two years.
The Ministry also said that as at March 31, this year, the stock of public debt has been increased by more than $3.8 billion as a result of deferred financing obligations. Some $1.3 billion has been paid out in principal and just over $1 billion in interest.
Under the deferred financing programme, the Government has been providing guarantees for contractors to access loans from commercial banks, which are used to finance public works programmes, mainly the current road-building and improvement projects, as well as the building of schools. The loans are repaid by the Government at a later stage.
