Angola’s amended State Budget should be ready by February. New assumptions about the global price of oil would slash US$14 billion from this year’s budget, according to documents from the Ministry of Finance seen by Portuguese news agency Lusa.
The Government has asked parliament to revise down the oil price assumption in the 2015 budget to US$40 per barrel from its earlier projection of US$81 per barrel, due to crude prices tumbling globally.
The Council of Ministers approved the new version of the budget on Friday and the National Assembly has until the end of next month to approve the changes, according to the statement.
Angola, Africa’s second largest oil exporter, has been hit hard by the more than 50 percent decline in oil prices across the world. They are now below US$50 per barrel.
According to the original State Budget, the Government expected to collect more than US$24.4 billion in taxes on oil in 2015. That projected tax take was already lower than last year’s target.
Taxes on oil accounted for about 76 percent of the Government’s fiscal revenue in 2013, when the price for export was above US$100 a barrel.