Appearing before the Joint Legislative Committee, which is chaired by Representative Moses Kollie of Lofa County, were Finance Minister Boima Kamara and the Commissioner-General of the Liberia Revenue Authority, Elfrieda Tamba among other co-workers.

An overview of the revenue summary of the nation's budget shows a little over US$555 million which is about 11 percent less than the original approved budget of US$622,743,420 million for the fiscal period of 2015-16.

The total resource envelope, according to fact sheets from the Ministry of Finance, comprised of US$495.60 million in revenue raised from domestic sources, US$30.26 in grant and a total of US$30.20 million in contingent revenue.

It states that the reduction, in this year's resource envelope is due mainly to difficulties currently being experienced by the Liberian economy occasioned by the fall in the prices of the nation's chief export commodities - iron ore and rubber.

The fact summary also attributed the reduction of the resource envelope to the slow growth of the world's economy, noting that, "the world economy is growing very slowly with only 4.7 percent growth projected in the coming budget year."

It further indicated that budget support from donors will be much less than previous years because most of the money in the forecast to be received currently was given in advance to handle the Ebola crisis and its effects in 2014 and 2015.

The national budget is considered as one of the most important government policy document in any nation. It shows how government expects to raise money from the economy and how it wants to spend on public goods and services.

The budget also identifies ways in which a government want to change the economy and to develop the country, according to a budget summary of the Ministry of Finance.
LINA WSG/PTK