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Where your money goes

The government's own numbers, and the questions they raise.

The Herminie government laid a Budget of Revenue and Expenditure before the National Assembly for 2026. It runs to hundreds of pages, and most people will never open it. We did. Every figure below is the government's own, with the page it sits on. We have added nothing. We have only read it, and asked what a citizen is entitled to ask.

The headline figures

Four numbers from the 2026 budget

SCR 86.7M

to run the Office of the President in 2026

+58%

rise in that office's wage bill in one year

SCR 22M

in a single line marked only 'other'

+492%

the revenue jump the books balance on

Line by line

What the budget shows

Each card is a single line from the 2026 Budget Estimates, shown across the years the government itself published, with the source page. The bar is drawn to scale from those figures.

The Office of the PresidentSCR 86.7M

The President's own office will cost SCR 86.7 million in 2026.

2024 actualSCR 74.6M

2025 budgetSCR 68.4M

2025 revisedSCR 76.8M

2026 budgetSCR 86.7M

The Office of the President was given SCR 68.4M for 2025, then revised its own spending up to SCR 76.8M, and has now budgeted SCR 86.7M for 2026. That is a 27 percent rise on what it said it needed a year ago, in the same months families are told to tighten their belts.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Office of the President, p.54 to 56

The wage bill+58%

The wage bill of the President's office jumps 58 percent in a single year.

2024 actualSCR 18.5M

2025 budgetSCR 21M

2026 budgetSCR 33.1M

Compensation of employees in the Office of the President rises from SCR 21.0M budgeted in 2025 to SCR 33.1M in 2026. That is an extra SCR 12 million a year on the pay of one office, in a country where nurses and teachers are told the money is not there.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Office of the President, economic classification, p.56

The catch-allSCR 22M

A single line marked 'other' nearly doubles, to SCR 22 million.

2024 actualSCR 10.5M

2025 budgetSCR 11.4M

2026 budgetSCR 22M

Other uses of goods and services in the Office of the President almost doubles from SCR 11.4M to SCR 22.0M, with no breakdown of what the money buys. Twenty-two million rupees of public money should not sit behind the word other.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Office of the President, economic classification, p.56

TravelSCR 14.3M

In 2024 the President's office alone spent SCR 14.3 million getting around.

2024 actualSCR 14.3M

2025 budgetSCR 12.7M

2026 budgetSCR 8.7M

Transport and travel for the Office of the President ran to SCR 14.3M in 2024. The budget shows it falling from here, which is welcome, but this is the plane tickets and motorcades of one office, and it is money that never reached a clinic or a classroom. The full travel record is on The Receipts.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Office of the President, economic classification, p.56

The former PresidentsSCR 4.6M

Running offices for former Presidents costs SCR 4.6 million a year.

2026 budgetSCR 4.6M

The Office of the Former President is its own line in the budget, at SCR 4.6M for 2026, on top of the special pensions former office holders already draw. The cost of the political class does not end on the day they leave office.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Office of the President, p.54

Special pensions+13%

Special pensions rise 13 percent. Ordinary pensions rise 6.

2025 revisedSCR 40.3M

2026 budgetSCR 45.6M

The Special Pensions line climbs 13 percent to SCR 45.6M for 2026. Ordinary pensions, the ones most Seychellois will ever draw, rise about 6 percent. The budget does not say who receives a special pension, or why theirs should grow more than twice as fast as everyone else's. It should.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Social Programs of Government, p.38

A convenient forecast+492%

The books balance on a tax the government expects to grow nearly six-fold, for one year only.

2025 revisedSCR 2.5M

2026 budgetSCR 14.5M

2027 forecastSCR 5M

The 2026 budget assumes SCR 14.5M from the Corporate Social Responsibility Tax, up from SCR 2.5M the year before, then quietly forecasts it falling back to SCR 5M the very next year. A one-year revenue spike is exactly how a budget is made to balance on paper without balancing in life.

Source · 2026 Budget Estimates, Corporate Responsibility Tax, p.16

How to read this

Our rules on this page

Every figure is the government's own. They are taken from the 2026 Budget Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure, laid before the National Assembly by the Ministry of Finance. We give the page for each one so anyone can check it.

We assert no wrongdoing. A number rising is not proof of anything by itself. We show the line, we show the years, and we ask the question. Where the budget does not explain something, that silence is the point.

Amounts are in Seychelles rupees. The budget is written in thousands of rupees, so a line reading 86,698 is SCR 86.7 million. We have converted for readability and nothing else.

The travel figures here are one office's line in the budget. The full record of who flew where, and what it cost, is on The Receipts.

A budget is a set of choices.

Every rupee spent on one thing is a rupee not spent on another. When the office at the top grows by a quarter in a year, that is a choice, and it is made with your money. The least a government owes you is to show its working. We think you should see the choices, and then decide.

See the travel record → Read what we would do instead