State employee salaries the priority: ministry
State employee salaries the priority: ministry
The Ministry of Finance has ordered finance departments in Vientiane and the provinces to hasten revenue collection in September to avoid delays in payments to state employees.
The move comes after salary payments for public service employees, soldiers, police and retired officials came late last month as a result of lower-than-expected government revenue collection this fiscal year.
However the payments eventually came after Minister of Finance Mr Phouphet Khamphounvong issued an instruction to finance departments to prioritise payments to state employees.
The ministry told finance departments to work with financial units to establish taskforce committees to accelerate revenue collection in the last month of the fiscal year.
“Revenue collection in September needs to be primarily channeled to the salaries of state employees while the payments to other sectors need to be considered in a suitable manner,” the instruction said.
The Ministry of Finance's Budget Department Director General, Mr Saisamone Xaysoulien, told Vientiane Times on Tuesday the government had paid all central state employees for the month of August, however some workers in rural areas, including teachers, still had not received their paychecks.
He said payments to employees for the 2012-13 fiscal year should be about 90 percent complete.
The ministry is urging its officials to explore more sources of revenue for next fiscal year, which will begin in October, and to address any financial leaks causing losses to the national budget.
As one of the smallest economies in Southeast Asia, Laos struggles to raise enough revenue to respond to its own develaopment needs.
More than half of domestic revenue is spent on salaries and living allowances for state employees – almost 700 billion kip each month.
As a result the country relies on foreign aid to boost development and help improve state services.
Over the past 11 months revenue collection has fallen considerably short of government targets, attaining just 78.38 percent of the 19,500 billion kip planned for the fiscal year.
The revenue shortfall has forced the government to hold a number of meetings to discuss measures to speed up revenue collection while tightening budget expenditure in order to avoid a financial crisis.
Last week Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong announced the government will no longer approve any private sector involvement in the construction of public offices.
The PM said the practice of offering state property to companies in exchange for construction project tenders placed the government at a disadvantage.
In the next fiscal year, the government has set revenue targets of at least 25,047 billion kip, representing 27.63 percent of GDP. Budget expenditure has been limited to 29,580 billion kip or 32.63 percent of GDP.
vientiane times
