News 24 | Deputy Minister of Finance Reveals Where Zakat Money, Traffic and Fee Violations, and Reason for Decreasing Projects in Budget

Deputy Finance Minister of Financial Affairs Yasser Al-Qahidan revealed how the government spends the money it collects in terms of zakat, traffic violations and government fees, explaining the reason from the decline in government projects to only 10% of the budget.

And he said – during his animation of the radio program Broadcast Socrates – that all the money from the corporate zakat goes to social security, and that sometimes these funds do not meet the requirements of the guarantee and are supported by the Treasury, and that this happens every year.

He explained that funds collected through the Commission for Monitoring and Combating Corruption, traffic violations and government service charges all enter the treasury under “other income”.

He added that the reason for reducing the post allocated to projects to only 10% of the total budget is that half of the budget pays salaries to state employees in addition to the operating expenses of the public sector, the expenses of the debt and the completion of the amounts required for social security.

He pointed out that the number of projects has decreased in the budget, as there are projects that have been completed and the project allocations have returned as needed, so that the housing program has reached its target at the end of 2020, in addition to the decrease in funding outside the Treasury, because we were spending a lot of money on desalination, and the funds are in charge of many projects too, and that is why their number and their funding have decreased.

He explained that the issue has to do with the transition from one stage to another, such as launching vision programs. Initially, the 2020 target was to put high capital expenditure on these programs, such as housing programs, national transformation, quality of life, Rahman guests and the expansion of the two holy mosques, which by nature depend on investment projects, namely development programs that have an indirect impact on the citizen in terms of job creation.

And he dealt with the definition of budget items, because the “financing expenditure” item deals with the occurrence of a budget deficit, whether it comes from reserves or debt, while the subsidies item concerns subsidies, not only for citizens but for beneficiaries, such as barley and wheat beneficiaries, and water, electricity and other subsidies are added to it, and the social benefits section is part From there, the account of the citizen and remedy the deficiency of social security.