Muscat – The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy on Tuesday issued a financial circular (No 1/2023) on rules for preparing the estimates for Oman’s 2024 budget.

The step comes in line with the implementation of national strategies and programmes of five-year development plans for achieving comprehensive development as per the goals of Oman Vision 2040.

The financial circular requires all ministries and government departments to prepare estimates for their respective budgets (current budgets and development budgets) for the year 2024.

The government departments are expected to submit their proposed annual plan drafts that include following: general goals and indices for accomplishing the plan, programmes and initiatives that achieve those goals, the proposed budgets set for them and the time plan for their implementation and criteria on which the 2024 budget estimates are based, compared to the 2023 budget.

The government departments are also required to present their medium-term plans in line with the respective revenue and expenditure schedules.

The circular stressed that all government units must submit the estimated budgets (current and development) for the fiscal year 2024 electronically, and enter the required budget estimates (revenues and expenditures) for existing budgets, the additional budget and the budget set for operating new projects. The budget estimates are required to be sent before the end of July 2023.

The circular indicates that it is necessary to submit a list of disbursement estimates expected during the year 2024 and the expected disbursement for the remainder of the year 2023. These are required for each development project within the context of the ongoing implementation stages and based on the entity’s records. The expected dates for completing the project implementation have to be specified.

This is in addition to submitting a list of the progress made in strategic programmes cited within the “Strategic Programmes Folder” of the 10th Five-Year Plan until the date of the report. Also, the percentages of achievement of each programme have to be specified. The required statements are required to be dispatched via the 2024 Development Budget System.