Brunei Increases Military Spending By $9m

09 Maret 2011

Bruney Army trains with Al Thalab special operation vehicle (photo : Azrol Azmi)

BRUNEI - THE State Legislative Council (LegCo) yesterday passed the Prime Minister's Office and Ministry of Defence's annual budget allocation of $541.922 million and $513.95 million respectively.

Second Finance Minister at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Pehin Orang Kaya Laila Setia Dato Seri Setia Hj Abdul Rahman Hj Ibrahim said the Ministry of Defence's (MinDef) budget allocation increased 1.4 per cent or about $9 million compared to the previous financial year.

During the seventh LegCo session yesterday, he said that the expenditure on employees' wages alone has increased by $3.4 million.

The minister explained that the rising expenses were due to increase of the annual increment for MinDef's employees, additional number of armed forces personnel and filling up the number of job vacancies.

Pehin Dato Hj Abdul Rahman attributed the rise in expenditure on factors such as the need to maintain operations capabilities and continue capacity building through executive development programme courses.

However, other special expenses has decreased by $5.1 million compared to the previous fiscal year.

This decrease is related to the ministry's cooperation with the Ministry of Finance to balance the budget provision and stabilise the increase of expenditure capacity building to ensure that it is more sustainable, the minister added.

As for the PMO, the majority of the budget has been designated for the Royal Brunei Police Force with $125.661 million.

(Asia Ones)