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Research blog / Kuwait public economics / August 2026

How Kuwait Can Have a 102.3% and a 44.1% Execution Rate in the Same Year

Capital budgets, closing accounts, and project-stage records measure different things

By Abdulmalik Altararwa

At a glance

Question
Why do public records report very different capital-execution rates for the same fiscal year?
Main finding
The rates use different denominators and spending universes. One compares closing-account cash spending with the original enacted allocation; the other covers a development-project envelope.
Evidence limit
Neither rate measures physical completion, construction quality, final amended appropriations, or the causes of delay.
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Kuwait's public accounts answer several related questions that are often collapsed into one. Budget and closing-account tables track authorization and cash spending. Development-plan follow-ups classify listed projects inside an administrative pipeline. A 102.3% capital-execution rate and a 44.1% project-envelope rate can therefore appear in the same year without being inconsistent. The denominators must travel with the numbers.

Fiscal series
Five years, FY2020/21 to FY2024/25
Cash denominator
Original enacted chapter 32 allocation
Plan snapshots
FY2019/20 and FY2023/24
Evidence tier
Fiscal and administrative measurement

Authorization, cash, and delivery are different objects

An enacted capital allocation authorizes spending at the start of the fiscal year. A closing account records cash expenditure after the year ends. An administrative follow-up reports where a list of development projects sits in a delivery process. An engineering audit would ask whether physical work was completed to specification.

These objects can move together, but they are not interchangeable. The clean comparison begins by naming the numerator, denominator, date, and project universe for each rate.

A denominator-specific cash-execution series

Grouped bars of Kuwait's original capital allocations and closing-account spending from fiscal year 2020/21 through 2024/25.
Closing-account capital spending divided by the original enacted chapter 32 allocation. The 102.3% value does not use a final amended appropriation, and cash spending is not physical completion. Source: Kuwait Ministry of Finance; author's calculations.

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FY2020/2195.5%Closing spending divided by original allocation
FY2021/2297.6%Closing spending divided by original allocation
FY2022/2388.9%Closing spending divided by original allocation
FY2023/24102.3%Closing spending divided by original allocation
FY2024/2581.8%Closing spending divided by original allocation

The 102.3% value says recorded capital cash spending slightly exceeded the original enacted allocation. It does not show overspending against the final amended appropriation because that denominator is not in the public series used here.

Project stages answer another question

Stacked bars comparing administrative stages for listed Kuwait development projects in fiscal years 2019/20 and 2023/24.
Administrative stages in two changing development-plan lists. The snapshots are not an engineering audit or a stable project cohort. Sources: KUNA and Al-Anba reports of SCPD follow-ups; author's calculations.

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The FY2019/20 public snapshot recorded 10 completed projects among 135. The FY2023/24 snapshot recorded 3 among 130, while roughly half of each list was in implementation. For FY2023/24, the reported development-project envelope spent KWD 450.8 million of KWD 1,022.222 million, or 44.1%.

The 44.1% project-envelope rate is not inconsistent with the 102.3% chapter-level cash rate. Their universes differ.

What the records do and do not establish

The series clarifies fiscal accounting and public administrative records. It does not reveal final amended chapter 32 appropriations, stable project cohorts, procurement delays, contractors, physical milestones, quality, or causal effects. Readers should not use cash execution as a synonym for engineering completion.

Citation and sources

Suggested citation: Abdulmalik Altararwa. 2026. "How Kuwait Can Have a 102.3% and a 44.1% Execution Rate in the Same Year." Research blog.

Sources: Fiscal values come from the Kuwait Ministry of Finance enacted budgets and closing accounts. Plan-stage snapshots come from attributed SCPD reporting.

Public-release boundary: This page publishes aggregate estimates, original figures, and source links. It does not publish raw records, restricted data, or local research files.