The performance of the economy in 2011 was better than Government expected.

"Not only did we not spend near to $2 billion of what it had anticipated to spend but (the government) also received an increase in the expected revenues of $1.9 billion," Finance Minister Winston Dookeran said yesterday.

Therefore Government has ended the year with a solid Central Government balance which has been well recognised by all, he stated, adding Government has a stable balance sheet in a turbulent time.

Speaking on the Finance Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday, Dookeran said what Government was doing was ensuring that parliamentary approval was sought to bring into account expenditure already incurred by ministerial approval for Treasury deposits.

"These were allocations made during the course of the year, for which there were no items in the appropriation bill 2011," he said.

He said the $2.7 billion variation required to bring to book Government's accounts resulted from four treasury deposits. One had to do with the construction of the Point Fortin highway—$1.5 billion; the second had to do with the payment of $100 million to the Hindu Credit Union and the third arose from the payment of $748 million to CLICO depositors, including the trade unions (which had money in CLICO) and those who benefitted from the compassionate window; the fourth arose from the payment of $354.1 million to complete the (Electricity) Generation Company in Point Fortin.

Dookeran said fiscal 2011 showed there was a provisional total expenditure of 50.9 billion.

He said the revised expenditure now before the Parliament was $53 billion and of this amount there was an "underexpenditure" of $2.1 billion. That "underexpenditure" arose from a decrease in recurrent expenditure by $1.1 billion.

In personnel expenditure some $263.3 million was not spent; in other goods and services some $259 million was not spent; in interest payments, "because we had not proceeded with seeking new loans", payments fell by $81.9 million and expenditure on current transfer fell by $464 million.

Furthermore capital expenditure showed a reduction in expenditure by $956 million.

Dookeran said Government also received more revenue from an increase in oil intake and from the better-than-expected yields from the tax amnesty.