Tasi Mane Program Summary of the 2016 IF Budget by Program

23 higher price of delivered goods and services and constraints on development, particularly in the regions. Since the establishment of the IF, the Government has allocated budget from its own funds as well as from concessional loan financing sources to upgrade the national, Dili urban road and district capital road networks. The rural road on the other hand is currently funded by the development partners with government contribution to the fund. The initial IF budget was 49.9 million for the implementation of 55 projects in 2014 and the budget was increased to 58.6 million. This excludes the additional funding of 26.0 million available from external loans. In 2015, a budget for roads has been allocated in the amount of 54.8 million, including 29.0 million in GoTL counterpart funding for the four loans funded projects plus 70 million from external loans. However, this allocated budget was later reduced by 10.0 million during the budget rectification in March 2015 that was taken from various projects within the road program including the government counterpart funding that was still in procurement stages. Therefore, the final budget allocation for road program in 2015 was reset to 44.8 million. CAFI approve an additional budget of 10 million which was vired from other program within the IF projects to pay the project of Dili urban road rehabilitation that has been completed in 2015. The 2016 Budget was structured to cover all the existing road projects that were established between 2013 and 2015. The total budget allocation for 2016 has been adjusted from 107.5 million to 104.23 million as per decision from National Parliament, and that was allocated for Dili urban road rehabilitation, government co-financing of loan funded road projects, and other existing district capital roads as listed in Annex 1 of this book.

4.2.16 Bridges Program

Good and well-maintained bridges are crucial for ensuring reliable access to markets, education and health services and for sustaining security and social stability. These are fundamental requirements for economic and social development as recognized by the Government in the Strategic Development Plan. Therefore, the construction of new bridges, rehabilitation of deteriorated bridges and widening of narrow bridges was justified by high traffic that ranked it as a high priority in the allocation of funds from the Infrastructure Fund. The IF bridge program commenced in 2011 with seven bridge projects of which two have been completed and all payments settled. Subsequent additions have resulted in a further four new bridges being completed and by end-2014, nine bridges were under construction or completed but with retention payments outstanding. The budget allocations for bridges over this period increased from 5.5 million to 18.7 4 million in 2014 but the latter was reduced to 11.7 million 4 Excluding Tono Bridge which was transferred to the Oecusse program.