2012 Budget breaks new ground

Soaring 35% above the already huge Timor-Leste State Budget for 2011, the proposed $1.76 billion State Budget for election year 2012 includes a little borrowing for the first time. The bulk of its revenue, $1.59 billion, comes from the Petroleum Fund, notwithstanding the Government's estimate of the sustainable withdrawal (ESI) from the fund at only $0.67 billion.

The Government presented the budget to Parliament last Friday and, in an improvement over past practice, has already posted the budget documents on the Ministry of Finance website. We have heard that this welcome increase in transparency is because they feared that La'o Hamutuk's website would again become the de facto budget source. We're honored to participate in that competition, and have posted the budget documents in a more accessible form to La'o Hamutuk's page on the 2012 budget (also Tetum), which will include analysis and commentary over the next few weeks.

On 7 October, we blogged a summary of some key issues in this budget.