The windfall tax Ethiopia collected from commercial banks after the devaluation of the birr last year is to be used to supplement the budget of the Ethiopian Roads Authority and the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development allocated 3 billion birr the ERA and 1 billion to the MoE. The bill allocating the supplementary budget was approved by the Council of Ministers and referred it the House of Peoples Representatives which referred it to the Budget and Financial Affairs Standing Committee.
If the committee approves the supplemental budget ERA’s budget will increase to 20.5 billion which is 177% more than the 7.1 billion birr the authority was allocated in 2008-09.
ERA requests supplemental budgets every year because it receives less than it asks for and because the nature of road projects is fraught with many uncertainties according to an Engineer with the authority.Challenges that occur during project implementation include price escalations, delays, unexpected additional work and problems with contractors causing the authority to incur unplanned for costs consuming the budget he explained.
The MoE is expected to use the additional 1 billion birr allocated it for the expansion of 12 universities including the eight that had become operational in 2011-12.
Source: Addis Fortune
