By Parliamentary Reporter

The Minister of Finance, Sheku Ahmed Fatamadi Bangura has outlined the risks in the implementation of the 2025 country’s budget.

Minister Bangura said achieving the objectives of the budget could be undermined by several internal and external factors, including the escalation of the conflict in the Middle-East and the protracted Russia-Ukraine war.

He said the twin-wars could worsen the supply disruptions and would lead to a further surge in the prices of essential goods, such as, food and fuel in the world over.

This, in turn, the Minister added, could lead to higher than government budgeted expenditures, including on energy subsidies and wider budget deficits, thereby compromising Government’s fiscal consolidation efforts.

The Minister made the submissions when delivering his budget speech in the chambers of parliament.

He noted that there are adverse effects of trade in the form of combined increase in the prices of our main imports, such as fuel and food and fall in the prices of key exports like iron ore which could widen the current account and fiscal deficits, putting it to pressure on the exchange rate, with  adverse implications for government expenditure.

The Minister stated that weak global economic growth, including a slow growth on the Chinese economy, could weaken the demand for our mineral exports and a consequent fall on price of exports.

He said this could lead to lower-than-projected domestic revenues and would derail the implementation of the Budget.

Bangura underscored that the delay in the implementation of budget support triggered by MDAs could lead to non-disbursement of resources by donors, thereby complicating the budget execution.

He also intimated that the non-implementation of the energy sector reforms could lead to further increase in energy subsidies and would divert resources away from priority areas.

He said there is a decline in donor support due to the economic challenges in the donor countries and also the diversion of resources to conflict-affected regions will affect budget implementation in the country Sierra Leone. Adding that climate change impacts and natural disasters, such as floods, mudslides and damage to infrastructure could lead to extra- budgetary expenditures which might lead to a situation that brings a limit on priority spending.