Vice-President James Alix Michel will, in his capacity as Minister for Finance, deliver his Budget Address for the fiscal year 2004 to the National Assembly on Tuesday morning.

The sitting will start at 9.00 a.m. and the Address will be broadcast live over Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) AM radio. On television the speech will be broadcast in full after the main 8.00 p.m. news.

As for Seychelles Nation, we will carry the Vice-President's Address in full in Wednesday issue as well as a summary of the main points in articles on pages 1 and 2.

Vice-President Michel will propose to the National Assembly a national budget of R1,226,635,000 for the fiscal year 2004.

The sum represents a 10 percent reduction (R136,829,000) on the figure approved for this year and fulfils the requirements of the Macro-Economic Reform Programme (MERP) launched in July this year to improve the country's budget performance.

MERP caters for a 10 to 15 percent reduction in Government's spending from 2004 to 2006 and the turning of a 16 percent deficit experienced in 2002 to surpluses of 15 to 17 percent over the same period.

The 2004 budget contains a reduction across the board for all allocations of authorised expenditure. The only areas where there have been a slight increase are allocations for the Police and Pensions and Gratuities.

The sum for the Ministry of Environment has doubled because the ministry has from this year absorbed the sewerage and cleaning agency SWAC. Previously SWAC was allocated money under subvention to regulatory bodies.

With the absorption of SWAC the Ministry of Environment's budget came to R49,740,000 this year but for 2004 the ministry will get R47,987,000.

The lion's share of the budget is for the Ministry of Health with R158,530,000 followed by the Ministry of Education R157,264,000.

The most significant reduction is under the allocation Subvention to Parastatals where only R29,724,000 has been proposed for 2004 compared to R101,120,000 this year.

Vice-President's Budget Address on Tuesday, will also mark the start of deliberations on the Appropriation Bill, 2004.

The National Assembly is expected to reconvene on Thursday December 4,  to continue deliberations on the bill.

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