Of the $7.5 billion in supplementary funding for which it is currently seeking parliamentary approval, government has earmarked $2.451 billion or a little more than 30% for the completion of severance payments to laid-off sugar workers.
As of May this year, planned government spending stood at over $271 billion, comprising the $267 billion national budget and supplementary provisions of $1.931 billion and $2.5 billion.
On Thursday, Minister of Finance Winston Jordan laid a third financial paper in the National Assembly to request a total of $7,584,274,488 in supplementary provisions for a variety of expenditures.
This request for the sum to cover severance represented one of three requests for the Ministry of Agriculture and one of more than 30 requests under the Current Estimates detailed in the paper.
