Thread by @mjkcongo

Lots of confusion re: DRC finance min's new Plan de Trésorerie, which seems to slash the 2020 budget. It took @WTBClowes and I a day to figure it out. Our piece isn't online, so here's how we read the Plan, which seems to be deliberately obfuscatory. 1/10 minfinrdc.com/minfin/wp-cont…

A Plan de Trésorerie is like the ministry's best guess about how much revenue gov't will raise & spend over a fiscal year based on past performance & the budget law. It doesn't take into account certain $ flows that gov't may have little control over, like donor projects. 2/10

2020 Budget is balanced @ 18.545 trillion CDF ($11b w/ $1 USD=1685 CDF). Plan de Trésorerie doesn't include comptes spéciaux, budgets annexes, recettes exterieures déjà pré-affectées, so we're left w/ recettes internes of 14.028t CDF ($8.3b). (Top R 2nd line) 3/10

For some reason, orig. Plan de Trésorerie puts 2020 revenue figure @ 13.869t ($8.2b) They call it Total des Revenus et Dons. (penultimate page of Plan, top R corner). 4/10

Revised Plan de Trésorerie cuts internal revenue figure to 9.195t ($5.46b) to reflect "les réalités du moment" & "tendances défavorables de la conjoncture actuelle." (page 4 of Plan, top R corner).

That's a 33% cut to internal revenue. 5/10

A Plan de Trésorerie changes as revenues and expenditures materialize. But changes aren't usually very big unless there's, say, a financial crisis, or, like, a doubling of copper/cobalt price.

Or, if the original plan was massively unrealistic. 6/10

One source told us, "The budget is political; the Plan de Trésorerie is a reality check."

Or, as @WTBClowes says: 7/10https://twitter.com/WTBClowes/status/1229772897381683204

IMO, it was a strange political decision to be so unrealistic @ start: The revised revenue projection is still 20% higher than last year's. A 20% increase would be a big achievement. That's like a billion dollars more to spend on education & health care. 8/10

But there are still plenty of questions. Plan doesn't address that other chunk of the budget: comptes spéciaux, budgets annexes, recettes exterieures. Will those also drop by 33%? More? Less? 9/10

The DRC fiscal situation isn't great for Pres. Tshisekedi. How will he weather several months of fiscal discipline to unlock IMF & World Bank support? The gov't is desperate for revenue with nowhere to get it quickly, unless they get lucky & copper & cobalt price jumps. 10/10