The Minister of State for Economic Coordination, José de Lima Massano, who presented the president's message to parliament on the proposed General State Budget (OGE) for 2025, said that the first half of 2024 was "encouraging" in terms of economic growth.
José de Lima Massano, highlighting that this is a behavior that has not been observed in the national economy since 2015, stated that "the first two quarters of 2024 were encouraging from the point of view of economic growth, with GDP growing on average by 4.1 percent".
This Thursday, parliament is discussing in general the OGE 2025 proposal, which estimates revenues and fixes expenses of 34.63 billion kwanzas and foresees a high debt service that will absorb almost 50 percent of budget expenditure, in a total of 16.5 billion kwanzas, of which 12.45 billion kwanzas are allocated to debt repayment.
José de Lima Massano signaled that the OGE 2025 proposal considers concrete actions to protect families and income and that promote economic growth, highlighting that the Government will reinforce the School Lunch Program by adopting a National School Meal Plan, which will feature a budget allocation of 450 billion kwanzas.
He argued that the strengthening of the aforementioned program comes with the objective of "progressively" reaching all public elementary schools, including initiation classes, believing that the measure should contribute to the reduction of child malnutrition and reinforce the incentive for school attendance.
He highlighted that domestically, inflationary pressures "are still very much felt, despite the slowdown that has been noted in recent months, with recognized advances in the fields of domestic production of essential consumer goods".
The minister noted that "challenges of productivity, scale and commercial organization and others that have influenced the formation and stability of prices prevail", ensuring that the strategic options of the OGE 2025 "are positive" and are in line with the priorities and objectives established in the National Development Plan 2023-2027.
In the social area, the minister assured that the "Kwenda" Social Monetary Transfer Program will also have a reinforced expression in this OGE, with 191.6 billion kwanzas being made available, allowing citizens in highly vulnerable situations to continue to count on direct institutional support from the State to alleviate and overcome the difficulties they still face.
Massano also highlighted that the OGE 2025 proposal includes resources so that the three new provinces and municipalities created, recently within the scope of the country's new administrative division, can function normally at the beginning of 2025.
Other axes of this budget proposal for the 2025 financial year were advanced, at the time, by the Minister of Finance, Vera Daves, highlighting that the document, prepared with a reference price of 70 dollars per barrel of oil, estimates production of 1.98 million of barrels/day.
According to the minister, reinforcing food security and strengthening national production, strengthening protection for the most vulnerable and the executive's role in combating poverty highlight the priorities of this budget.
"We must also improve the performance of the Public Investment Program, because we understand that projects that have been stopped and yet to be completed represent a very large burden for the State, especially because the recovery costs are high", highlighted Vera Daves.
