Ministry of Planning: We have completed the first draft of the investment framework for the 2027 budget.
Ministry of Planning: We have completed the first draft of the investment framework for the 2027 budget.
9-11-2026
The Ministry of Planning announced on Friday the completion of the first draft of the investment framework for the 2027 budget. It confirmed that the 2027 budget focuses on completing existing projects and prioritizing them according to achievement and need. Undersecretary of the Ministry of Planning, Maher Hammad Johan, stated in an interview with the official agency, the details of which will be published later: “The ministry is a key part of preparing the program and performance budget for 2027.” He explained that “the ministry supports the program with two frameworks. The first relates to clarifying the detailed concepts of the program and performance issue, given that the ministry has already addressed this issue in previous stages.”
He added that “the second framework relates to measuring the subject of program and performance budgeting, which is easier and clearer, given that this budget directly links outputs to inputs,” explaining that “the basic idea of program and performance budgeting is not to mention detailed classifications of financial spending on immediate items, but rather to specify the amount allocated to the entity and what its output will be. For example, instead of saying that we will allocate 100 million for fuel expenses, operating workers, and other things, we specify that the output will be building a school that serves a larger number of citizens.”
Johan also noted that “meetings are ongoing, and we have representation from the Director General of the Department of Economic and Financial Policies, as well as my representation with the Minister, in his capacity as Acting Minister of Planning, in drawing up a picture of the program and performance budget related to the investment budget.”
Regarding the investment framework for the upcoming budget, Johan explained that “the Ministry of Planning has completed, after extensive review with sectoral bodies, governorates and the Ministry of Finance, the preparation of the first draft of the investment framework for the upcoming budget.”
He added that “the ministry built the framework on 3 or 4 options, three basic and the fourth option is the one we preferred,” explaining that “one of the options relates to the need of ministries, agencies and governorates to spend in the coming year, and this is taken into account, but it is not relied upon, while the second option depends on the vision of the Ministry of Planning according to the projects and their progress in the work,” and he continued that “the third option depends on the ability of the Ministry of Finance and the ability of the implementing agencies,” indicating that “we read the ability of the Ministry of Finance from past years, and how we, as a state and Ministry of Finance, were able to provide appropriate funding, and based on that we can judge how much funding we can provide for the year 2027, according to a full understanding of the problems and obstacles facing the country and the challenges of the regional crisis between the American side and the neighbor Iran and its repercussions on the main resource of the economy.”
Regarding the prioritization of projects under financial pressures, Johan said: “The last option we went to depends largely on the actual achievement for the year 2026 for the agencies and ministries, which is the advance of completed work as a basic framework, and the credits that they need, with the addition of expectations in a simple way.”
He also explained that “the amount is under review, but we are trying to make it about 25 percent of the expected budget,” noting that “part of it will be for loans, because we have ongoing loans and new loans, and there is funding available for them, while the other part will be a support for the general budget,” pointing out that “the size as a percentage we expect to be no less than 20 to 25 percent of the size of the state’s general budget.”
He stressed that “the ministry has taken the scarcity of resources into consideration since the beginning of its dialogues with ministries and sectoral bodies,” explaining that “the ministry has put in place a clear mechanism, which includes setting priorities based on the fact that the projects closest to completion have priority, and choosing the projects closest in need, i.e., the most needed by citizens, and arranging the rest of the priorities on this basis.”
He also pointed out that “our view as a ministry is that we are not in favor of adding new projects except to a very critical extent, because we have a large number of projects under completion, and all of them provide a service, and it is better to complete the completion of these services and provide them instead of adding projects that we start with and do not finish.” He continued: “We want to finish what we started previously, and we are not in favor of adding any project except in very critical cases, before the authorities complete their existing projects, and it is possible to set up an equation or standard for them, so that whoever completes a new project and puts it into service, it is possible to provide a new project for him, similar to what he has established.”
Regarding the number of ongoing and stalled projects, Johan explained that “I don’t have the exact basic number, but at the ministerial level there are about 3,000 projects,” noting that “the ministry has made a major streamlining of the budget this year, by reviewing the components of the projects and the projects that have not been started, and we asked the authorities to review their feasibility studies and the possibility of keeping them, and therefore there was a streamlining in the budget of all ministries and governorates.”
He added, “There are completed projects that have reached high completion rates and are still pending. Our directive to the relevant authorities is that they should enter service and be removed from the general budget, because it is unfortunate to find projects that have reached a completion rate of 97 or 98 percent and we are waiting for a simple service, such as a water pipe or an electricity pipe, to be completed.”
He also indicated that “the ministry has a list of stalled projects, and detailed figures will be provided later,” expressing “fear that the current circumstances may lead to a repeat of the experience of stalled and stopped projects.” He continued, “We asked to know which of the currently ongoing projects have stopped, as most of the authorities have not officially informed us of an official halt to the projects, and this is relatively good, but our reliable information is that even if the projects have not stopped, their productivity rates have decreased significantly. If their activity in the project used to reach 100 activities, today they do not have more than 10 activities in the project.”
He added that “the ministry has made great efforts over the past three years to lift many projects from the state of stagnation and put them back into service, after they were remnants of the 2014 crisis, but the current crisis may lead to a repeat of the experience,” noting that “the return of projects to stagnation and cessation entails very large effects and damages related to the disappearance of these projects, the delay in providing the service, the change in the prices of items, and many other things.”
Regarding the financial dues owed to contractors and companies, Johan confirmed that “we have proven accumulated dues owed to contractors amounting to about 8 trillion,” indicating that “the state has begun to pay part of it in the governorates, and there is a directive from the Prime Minister to pay it during the coming months, and its percentage may reach more than 20 percent of these amounts.”
He also stressed that “contractors are the private sector in general, and they are partners in construction, in addition to the fact that their work is reflected in the employment of thousands or millions of job opportunities,” stressing that “we will work, pressure, strongly support and assist the Ministry of Finance and the Cabinet in supporting the provision of the private sector’s dues related to projects.”
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