All over the world, government budgets and corporate financial statements are treated with extreme caution since all major decisions as well as business performance depend on these budgets. Everyone is curious to see how the budget figures will affect their businesses, and for this reason governments and companies release the information on fixed dates that seldom change. Analysts, decisionmakers and ordinary people will, by that date, have prepared their projections and expectations.
Here in the Kingdom, the budget was traditionally linked to the Islamic calendar. The budget was normally announced when the sun moved into the sign of Libra — the scales or the balance — and everybody knew that that was the date for the budget.
However, with international political and economic relations increasingly entangled and with most Arab and Muslim countries’ budgets being published at the end of the Gregorian year, the Saudi budget began to appear on a variety of dates that were sometimes as much as three months ahead of the Gregorian calendar.
To avoid the controversy that would arise if the budget were linked with the Gregorian calendar instead of the official Islamic one, the announcement date was fixed as the 10th day of the sign of Capricorn which corresponds to Dec. 31. What is most noticeable here is that over the past three years, the timing of budget has not been constant — to the extent that it failed to coincide with either the Islamic or Gregorian calendars.
The budget was unveiled on Ramadan 22, 1421, Ramadan 23, 1422 and Ramadan 22, 1423, which coincided with Dec. 18, 2000, Dec. 8, 2001 and Nov. 27, 2002. This year the budget was announced on Shawwal 21, 1424 corresponding to Dec. 15, 2003.
Such variations have driven analysts and other experts to make wild projections and predictions that sometimes amounted to no more than mere rumors. We all know that rumors normally flourish in an unclear and inconsistent atmosphere.
The situation was further worsened and exacerbated by the failure of the Ministry of Finance to issue any clarification or announcement to put an end to the wild speculations. Surely, it is important for us to fix a definite date for announcing the budget — let it be a particular day or a week of a certain month and let it be the same every year. The Council of Ministers can hold a special session to endorse the budget without necessarily linking it to the weekly Monday meeting. I can’t understand how the budget of a country like Saudi Arabia still lacks a fixed date for its release.
