Education gets 17pc in Budget 2022

Oman Budget 2022, which maintains prudent and sustainable levels of public spending, accords priority for citizens' standard of living.

“Public revenues and expenditures have been estimated after taking into account the Medium-Term Fiscal Plan (MTFP), as well as a set of bases and scenarios, which all aim to ensure the continuation of basic services delivery such as education, healthcare, housing and social welfare”, a statement issued by the Ministry of Finance said on Saturday.

According to it, the main considerations when preparing 2022 Budget estimates were maintaining the level of spending on essential services such as education, healthcare, housing, and social welfare.

Education gets the highest 17 per cent out of a total of 40 per cent allotted for basic services in the budget, which has a public spending estimate of RO 12.1 billion for 2022.

Healthcare gets 11 per cent, followed by social welfare with seven per cent and housing five per cent.

In the budget statement, the Ministry of Finance said it would undertake a number of initial studies on certain projects to be carried out under public, private partnership to provide basic infrastructure.

“Developing educational infrastructure and benefiting from the private sector expertise in designing, building and maintaining schools to meet the increasing demand for schools in various governorates will be undertaken”, informs the statement.

In this phase, 40 schools are planned to be constructed under public-private partnership.

In the health sector, under the hemodialysis services project, a number of dialysis centres are planned to be established under public private partnership so as to reduce the costs borne by the Ministry of Health.

Current expenditures of ministries and government units are estimated at RO 4,3 billion, in accordance with actual needs of all government civil units, the outcome of fiscal consolidations and government initiatives geared towards spending reduction.

Salary appropriations of government units allocated as per the occupied posts amount to 74 per cent totalling RO 3.2 billion.

The appropriations allocated under 'Contributions and Other Expenses' for subsidies are estimated at RO 1,071 million. These include subsidies for electricity, water, sewage, and waste sectors. In addition there have been subsidies for oil products, housing, and development loans.

These allocations include housing aid, social housing scheme, and housing loans. In 2021, the number of households that benefited from the social housing scheme reached 1,247 households.

“The amount allocated for such a scheme shall remain at the same level in 2022. The total appropriations allocated for oil products subsidy are estimated at about RO 35 million”, the statement adds.

While an amount of RO 575 million has been allocated for electricity and water subsidy, the transport sector is planned to receive a subsidy worth RO 80 million.