Syrian government 2022 budget indicates nightmare economy and starving Syrians
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – In light of the acerbating collapse of the Syrian pound, deteriorating economy, and lack of food security of the Syrians, the People’s Assembly approved, yesterday, the general budget for 2022 at 13 trillion Syrian pounds (SYP, about $5,3 billion).
Meanwhile, the approved budget of the current year was $6,8 billion according to exchange rate at the time.
This means that the next year budget will be one and a half billion less than the budget of the current year.
2019 budget was about two trillion SYP, in 2020 was four trillions SYP, and in 2021 the approved budget was about 8,5 trillion SYP.
In late 2019, the exchange rate was about 1,000 SYP against the US dollar and in 2021 is has been ranging at about 3,500 SYP.
According to the aforementioned numbers, followers say the budget of 2019 of 2 trillion SYP was worth, according to mid-year exchange rate, more than $3 billion, which is more than this of 2021.
When the Syrian government approves a budget over 10 trillion SYP for the next year, this definitely means that the exchange rate will hike up to 5,000 SYP in 2022, according to followers.
Corruption in collecting taxes
“The problem lays in the corruption spreads in the Ministry of Finance regarding tax collection,” the pro-government al-Watan newspaper cited the professor of economics at Damascus University, Shafiq Arbash, as saying.
“Imposing improper taxes will urge craftsmen and factories’ owners to travel abroad,” Arbash stressed describing the public sector as being “near paralyzed.”
Ibrahim al-Adi, another professor of economics at Damascus University, also described the tax collection system as “backward, and globally extinct, as it is more than 70 years old.”
“There is so much flopping inside the Syrian governance administration in the economic field particularly in light of the Russian-Iranian racing to take over the Syrian economic decision making,” economists say.
The government’s behavior regarding the financial policy in general indicates that it intends to completely abandon the economic filed “especially after it offered 38 government institution for sale that is the most dangerous incident to the country’s sovereignty, according to economists.
Days ago, the Syrian government hiked the prices of subsidized gasoline (distributed through ration cards) in the areas it control from 750 SYP to 1,100, for the fourth time in a year. The rate of the increase this time is 46%.
Again, in early November, the ministry doubled the price of household gas cylinder from 3,800 to 9,700 SYP.
Government pretexts and low incomes
The government claims that it offers basic consumption goods to its citizens with prices less than their original cost and less than universal prices, too, neglecting poor salaries and wages.
Syria comes at the bottom of the list of countries with the lowest income and highest poverty levels in a time when the average of the monthly wage of the government employee is 90,000 SYP (about $25).
Each Syrian family needs $243 to buy basics including bread, sugar, rice, lentils and oil. This is equivalent to 824,000 SYP, ten times the average salary in the country, according to a UN report released early this year.
The price of different food basics in the markets within the Syrian government-held areas has witnessed a record acerbating hike by about %10,5 per week since early November.
Meanwhile, burdens and sufferings of the Syrian families residing in the government-held areas are worsening due to this price hike threatening thousands of families with starvation or Malnutrition.
In October, the Syrian Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection issued a price bulletin for basic materials with a remarkable increase that reached %20 in some materials.
Meanwhile, the real prices in retail stores were more than the government set ones by between 5 and 25 in percent. And the prices differ from one area to another and from one store to another.
The United Nations said, 9 in 10 Syrians live in poverty, with 60% at risk of going hungry this year.
The 12.4 million Syrians are food insecure, the World Food Program (WFP) said.