The report “Budgetary Developments of Public Administrations in 2024” by the Public Finance Council (CFP) highlights that the total withheld funds on Central Administration spending amounted to 1.258 billion euros. This includes 1.234 billion euros initially applied and an additional 23.7 million euros allocated during the budget execution.
Last year, 777.1 million euros were released, with over two-thirds being spent on procuring goods and services.
Permanent withholdings totaled 481.1 million euros, approximately one-third of which involved the “Infrastructure and Housing” program.
The CFP detailed that permanent withholdings were mainly focused on goods and services procurement (201.7 million euros) and “other current expenses” (271.4 million euros reserved, of which only 141 million euros were released).
Compared to 2023, permanent withholdings decreased by 111 million euros.
The budgetary reserve for 2024 was set at 474.1 million euros, representing 2.5% of the expenditure budget for each Central Administration program.
Of the total reserve, 144.8 million euros (30.5%) were used, with about one-third of this allocation used by the Ministry of Internal Administration (44.4 million, mainly to strengthen the budget of its General Secretariat).
The CFP also notes usage in the Ministry of Justice (27.7 million euros, 27.2 million of which were for bolstering the budget of the Institute for Financial Management and Justice Equipment), the Ministry of National Defense (24.9 million), and the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Higher Education (12.8 million).
Some 329.3 million euros of the budget reserve remained unused.
The entity further notes that the provisional allocation (intended to cover unforeseeable and unavoidable expenses) for 2024 amounted to 500 million euros. Reinforcements from this allocation reached 468.5 million euros, with 468.0 million euros effectively applied to expenses, leaving 32 million unused.
According to the details, “more than four-fifths” of the applied amount strengthened current transfers within the Ministry of Finance’s budget (227.6 million euros to enable the execution of the out-of-court settlement agreement between the Portuguese state and EDP-Energy Production Management, related to the Fridão Hydroelectric Development) and the Ministry of Education (158.5 million, entirely covering obligations to teaching staff, including salary improvements and career advancements for public employees).
Other centralized effective expense allocations in the Ministry of Finance totaled 225 million euros in the State Budget for 2024 (OE2024), with the national public contribution utilized in full (50 million euros). However, the participatory budget allocation of Portugal (five million) was not executed.
Regarding the OE2024 forecast, 280.8 million euros remained unused, equivalent to 0.1% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
While there was reduced expenditure (in cash terms) of 571 million euros — attributed to the application of permanent withholdings (excluding those on the budgetary reserve) amounting to 209.7 million, the incomplete use of the budgetary reserve (329.3 million), and the provisional allocation of 32 million — on the other hand, the other centralized allocations in the Ministry of Finance showed higher-than-expected effective expense execution totaling 290.2 million euros.
