The government has spent 224.2 million dinars on subsidizing food, construction materials during the first 9 months of 2022 reached 224.2 million dinars, an increase of 55.6%, with a value of 80.1 million dinars, compared to spending amounting to 144.1 million for the same period of 2021.
Official data seen by a local Arabic daily shows the subsidy bill has recorded 225 million dinars spending in 2021 and the 2022 bill is likely to increase at a greater rate, especially since the entire 2021 spending is roughly equivalent to the volume of spending for the first 9 months of this year.
The jump in the subsidy bill was driven by the global rise in the prices of commodities, foodstuffs, and construction materials, which burdened the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with additional burdens, in a step to mitigate the effects of the global rise on citizens, through its pledge since the beginning of last year to bear those increases as part of its endeavor to provide goods and needs. Basic commodities supported by their previous prices and without burdening the citizens, as they deliberately borne the price difference resulting from the high cost of basic commodities from origin.
This comes in addition to bearing the cost of shipping and transportation, which was a natural result of a number of factors, starting with the Corona virus pandemic in 2019, then the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war in the year 2022, whose effects are still continuing on the whole world to this day, leading to the increase in material subsidies and construction driven by the new housing distributions and the start of many citizens’ constructions to build a house in a number of new cities, on top of which is the residential city of Al-Mutla’a and West Abdullah Al-Mubarak and other areas.
In detail, the construction materials subsidy bill, during the period from January to the end of September 2022, accounted for 62% of the total support bill, amounting to 139.3 million dinars. During the first 9 months of this year, compared to 78.1 million dinars for the same period of 2021.
Last September recorded the highest rate of spending on construction materials subsidies, with 20.6 million dinars, accounting for about 15% of subsidies for construction materials, followed by January with a value of 18.7 million dinars, then the third month of August with a value of 18.1 million dinars, then February fourth at a rate of Spending amounted to 16.5 million dinars, then the month of March, fifth, with 15.3 million dinars, then July, sixth, with 13.2 million dinars, then April, seventh, with 12.5 million dinars.
The spending bill on subsidies provided for basic foodstuffs and supplies increased by 26.4%, amounting to 16.2 million dinars, as the volume of spending during the period from January to the end of last September amounted to about 77.6 million dinars, compared to 61.4 million dinars for the same period of 2021.
The figures showed that the month of June 2022 recorded the highest rate of spending on subsidizing basic materials at 13.9 million dinars, followed by September at 11.8 million dinars, then July at 11.3 million dinars, then March at 9.3 million dinars, then May at 8.1 million dinars.