Ministry of Finance has revealed that the government has spent 7.7% more on employee salaries in 2022 compared to the previous year.
According to the latest Weekly Fiscal Developments report published by the finance ministry, the government spent USD2.1 billion on expenditures from January 1 to October 27 this year. It is a 17.5% increase compared to USD2 billion spent during the same period last year.
The largest portion of recurrent expenditure was spent on administrative expenses. The government has spent USD940 million so far this year, according to the report. The government spent USD730 million on administrative expenditures in 2019 which is an increase of 27.7% compared to the same period in 2021. The next largest share of recurrent expenditure was spent on salaries for employees. The government spent USD600 million on salaries so far this year compared to USD553 million spent in the same period last year which is a 7.7% increase.
The government has also increased jobs and created many opportunities for the youth including apprenticeship programmes for more than 20,000 youths, more than 15,000 students having the opportunity to study for free degrees, state-of-the-art sports facilities, USD31 million for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) loans, 1,103 foreign education opportunities for teachers, and 25,178 educational training programmes for employees.
The vision of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is to establish equal pay for all workers in the country. The government has increased the salaries of education workers this year and will increase the salaries of health workers next year.