Taking away the money from the Atlantic Accord, the province’s deficit has grown to almost a billion dollars.
Finance Minister Tom Osborne provided the 2019 Fall Fiscal Update today at Confederation Building, reiterating the report only covers this fiscal year.
Revenue for the province has dropped by about $392-million, contributing to the ballooning of the deficit to about $943-million—up from what was $575-million on Budget Day.
Taking away the $2.5 billion received from the Atlantic Accord deal, the deficit has ballooned from $575 million to $943 million.
Still $1.5M in surplus due to Accord.
Osborne says levy will be gone in two weeks. @VOCMNEWS #nlpoli pic.twitter.com/u8QuugAOs7
— Ben Murphy (@BenMurphy590) December 11, 2019
The numbers look better on paper due to the $2.5-billion in revenue from the Atlantic Accord, which was all counted in the current budget. With that, government is dealing with a $1.55-billion surplus, down from $1.92-billion.
Government says they have found savings in the area of $24-million—taking a total of $368-million away from the surplus.
The Department of Finance says there were a number of factors contributing to the decrease in revenues. The main elements identified were the Hibernia shutdown, and the drop in oil prices.
$185 million was lost in the Hibernia shutdown (deferred revenue though) and $46 million was lost to a drop in oil prices.
GDP has dropped by one percent from last year from 4.1% down to 3.1%, predicted to drop to 2.6 next year. @VOCMNEWS #nlpoli pic.twitter.com/UKE3tJDnHc
— Ben Murphy (@BenMurphy590) December 11, 2019
The Hibernia shutdown cost the province about $185-million in “deferred” revenue, while the drop of price of oil accounted for another $46-million.
As for net debt, that continues to grow, increasing from $13.77-billion in Budget 2019, to $13.95-billion.
Borrowing will stay the same at $1.2-billion, again due to a drop in revenue.
The GDP has dropped by one per cent from 4.1 to 3.1, which projections it will decrease again to 2.6 per cent in 2020.
