General reserve cuts not indicative of deficit

Deductions worth KD28.5 billion (USD$94 billion) in the general reserve from 2015 to 2017 do not represent the deficit for those three years, Kuwait's Finance Ministry said on Sunday.
The majority of deductions from the general reserve in the last three years aimed to close the budget deficit for the fiscal year 2016-2017, which stood at KD5.737 billion ($18 billion), the ministry's official spokesman, Abdulmohsen Al-Tayar, told the press.
Meanwhile, deductions from the general reserve for fiscal year 2015-2016 were worth KD5.071 billion ($16 billion), he added.
Al-Tayar noted that total sums transferred to the Future Generations Fund, FGF, from 2015-2017 stood at KD15.548 billion ($51 billion), while Kuwait's Public Institution for Social Security's actuarial deficit in those years was KD1.413 billion ($4 billion).
He pointed out that the nation's laws only allow pecuniary "additions to the FGF" and the general reserve deals with oil, as well as domestic and foreign bond revenues.
"A sum that is around 10 percent or higher than the average state revenue is added to the FGF, while other amounts are taken from the general reserve to cover government spending," Al-Tayar said.

Source: Wam