GOVERNMENT will have to outperform by nearly $4 billion the original revenue target for the last two months of the current fiscal year if it hopes to pass the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) grading this May.

At stake is a US$100-million disbursement from the IMF, which it will not give to the Government should Jamaica not meet performance targets for March 31, but even then the implications for market confidence, among other things, might be more far-reaching should Jamaica fail the IMF’s first test.

Critical to stakeholders is the primary balance which must be met under the list of quantitative performance criteria on which the IMF will grade the Government.

For the 10 months to January 2010, the primary balance — the difference between government revenue and its non-debt expenditure — was a positive $42.7 billion compared to a surplus of $66.9 billion that is targeted for the full fiscal year.

Government will thus have had to make $24.2 billion more than it now estimates it will have spent on programmes, wages and capital projects over February and March.

According to its second supplementary estimates of expenditure tabled in Parliament yesterday, non-debt expenditure will now total $233.9 billion for the full fiscal year that runs to March 31. Up to January, the Government spent $186.6 billion, which means that it expects another $47.3 billion would have been spent in February and March.

What’s working against it is that revenue has been tracking considerably below target and it will have to collect at least $71.5 billion in revenue, which is $3.8 billion more than was originally projected for the last two months, to meet the primary balance target.

But there is another criteria that the Government may not be able to pass — the direct debt ceiling, which was set at $1.26 trillion as at March 31, 2010.

At the end of December, Government already held $1.25 trillion.