KUALA LUMPUR: The federal government has tabled its second Supplementary Supply (2014) Bill 2015 amounting to RM2.22 billion, in addition to the RM4.11 billion additional expenditure last year.

These two supplementary budgets were tabled to add to the initial RM264.2 billion budget allocation for 2014, which was tabled by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in October 2013.

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Chua Tee Yong tabled the bill for first reading  yesterday in Parliament. The second reading is expected next week, with more details on the additional budget allocation.

According to the bill, the bulk of the additional funds worth RM1.24 billion was allocated for contributions to statutory funds, followed by the Education Ministry, which saw RM428.02 million injected.

Apart from that, the additional budget was also allocated for the Public Service Department (RM287.03 million), the Health Ministry (RM200.72 million), the Federal Territories Ministry (RM34.37 million), the Foreign Affairs Ministry (RM26.83 million) and the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (RM10 million).

“The bill seeks to provide for the issue from the consolidated fund, a sum of RM2.22 billion for the services and purposes specified in the schedule for the year 2014,” it said.

In June last year, the government tabled its first Supplementary Supply (2014) Bill 2014 for an additional RM4.11 billion for additional operations expenditure during the same period.

According to the initial budget for 2014, the government had initially allocated RM217.7 billion for operating expenditure.

In total, the initial budget tabled by the government for 2014 amounted to RM264.2 billion. The remaining RM46.5 billion was utilised for development expenditure.

The first 2014 supplementary budget, which was tabled by Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan, saw an additional RM3 billion channelled to the public services treasury which is under the Ministry of Finance. The Education Ministry was allocated RM634.05 million.

He cited that the first additional budget was required to accommodate urgent expenditure such as subsidies, emoluments, pension, retirement allowance, civil and armed forces pensioners’ medical treatment and utilities and maintenance costs.

Out of the total, Ahmad said RM3 billion was for the payment of fuel subsidy claims and funding the emolument budget shortage.

The remaining amount was to fund the costs of concession payment for six Universiti Teknologi Mara campuses as well as price hike in contracts following the implementation of the minimum wage.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on March 24, 2015.