The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), in the voice of the Permanent Secretary of, Domingos Lambo, recently stated that macroeconomic projections play a crucial role in Public Finance management and are therefore considered the basis for making numerous strategic decisions and implementing reforms.
The statement was made in Maputo, at the opening session of the Workshop on public expenditure with a focus on forecasting and programming of the main expenditure indicators.
For Lambo, the event was of great importance because it dealt with matters relevant to achieving financial sustainability, and because it took place at a time when the country decided to extend the scope of fiscal decentralization.
“Thus, within the framework of the work program, the idea is to share the fiscal rules, the forms of classifying public expenditure, and to analyze the methods of forecasting and allocating expenditure which, due to their relevance, need to be deepened in view of the changes in the structure of their management,” he said.
According to the secretary, macroeconomic projections “are a form of estimation and the first step to be considered during the planning and budgeting process, in order to ensure financial sustainability.
“It is for this and other reasons that we brought this topic ‘Public Expenditure Forecasting’ which we consider to be a crucial matter in the public finance management process, especially in the definition of the targets for macroeconomic and fiscal indicators,” he said.
For her part, the national director of Risk Management, Nazira Dista, said that the workshop aimed to train the staff of the MEF and other state institutions that intervene in the processes of planning and financial programming, as well as in matters of macroeconomic and fiscal projections, with a focus on public expenditure.
“We intend to improve forecasting methods, with a view to reducing budget deviations and giving greater robustness to the planning and budgeting process in order to avoid unrealistic projections because these contribute to a fiscal imbalance, becoming a fiscal risk that can put pressure on the State Budget and increase public debt,” stressed the director.
