Dominica looking ahead to Skerrit’s EC$854 million national budget

Dominica's Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Roosevelt Skerrit is scheduled to present a budget statement on Thursday, with expectations that it will amount to more than EC$854 million in recurrent and capital expenditure for 2017/2018.

This is an increase of $173 million compared to the budget for 2016/2017.

According to the prime minister’s office, recurrent expenditure

In the 2017/2018 National Budget, recurrent expenditure – all payments other than those for capital assets – will see an increase of more than $137 million.

Capital expenditure will see a boost of at least $36 million.

“The prime minister will, in his budget statement on Thursday, provide an explanation for the increases and decreases in allocations as well as provide some important performance indicators,” a statement from his office said.

[caption id="attachment_919" align="aligncenter" width="499"] Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica.[/caption]

The contribution by revenue generated from the citizenship by investment programme will no doubt feature very prominently in the highly anticipated annual policy speech, it added.

Despite repeated attempts to contact the opposition United Workers Party and its leader, Lennox Linton, WIC News has had no reply to emails requesting initial comments on the budget.

Thursday's sitting of the House of Assembly is scheduled to commence at 10.00am local time (UTC-4).

A post-budget panel discussion will be shown on Channel 7 between 6.30pm and 8pm. It will also be broadcast on Kairi FM, DBS Radio and on YouTube.

WIC News will be bringing you the latest updates across social media during the budget statement.