Monday, June 27, 2022 - 09:12

No goodies expected in hard budget tomorrow

On Tuesday at 10.30am the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo will take to his feet in the Parliament chamber and set out Gibraltar’s spending and revenue plans for the financial year. In so doing, as the public look on with bated breath and more in hope than in expectation, he will reveal what taxes and charges go up and what comes down.

ECONOMIES
The Government have made no secret that this is expected to be a difficult budget. Finances and economies have been shattered all over the world and countries have taken on all-time record levels of debt in order to maintain economic activity and employment. The United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union have all taken to borrowing vast sums of money in an unprecedented manner.
COVID
In a general sense this is an early budget, last year, for example, it came on 20 July. The Chief Minister has already pointed out only last month that it will show a deficit of £55.3 million for 2021/22. This means that the Government lost £4.6 million every month of last year as more money went out than came in. The reason for this is clearly the astronomical cost of the covid pandemic, now at over £360 million, which the Chief Minister explained at the time equated to 15% of Gibraltar’s GDP.