In the case of education, for example, a teachers' wages would come under current expenditure, while building a new school - a physical asset which will last a long time - would be classed as capital.
BBC: Budget 2013: Should the government plough ahead with cuts?
He also predicted that as a percentage of GDP, primary current expenditure (excluding interest payments and capital spending), which in 2008 reached its highest level since the second world war, would rise by a further three percentage points in 2009.
"A country that depends almost entirely on the international community for the salaries of its soldiers and policemen, for most of its investments and partly on it for its current civil expenditure, cannot be really independent, " Bernard Bajolet, former French ambassador to Afghanistan, said in a recent farewell speech in Kabul, before leaving to become his country's intelligence chief.
However, current capital-expenditure investment may not be sufficient to increase production levels in coming years, she said.
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Defence spending is due to increase this year and next, but military experts say the Ministry of Defence's budget could fall by between 10% and 15% in real terms over the next six years if its current and capital expenditure is reduced in line with forecasts for the rest of government.
As a result, many analysts had expected the government to announce a cut in expenditure in the current budget.
The best-case scenario is that both the debtor and credit countries adjust their current and future fiscal imbalances by cutting expenditure.
He said it represented a cut of 6.9% in current spending and 37% of capital expenditure in the next four years.
In March, some road maintenance expenditure will be reclassified as investment rather than current spending.
ECONOMIST: But there is still reason to worry about future years
That applies both to the current budget balance and the net fiscal balance, including capital expenditure.
Eskom has ambitious expansion plans for the next four years, but the company's current difficulties stem from a failure by government to approve capital expenditure programmes in the late 1990s.
The group set out a four-step plan to respond to its current difficulties: A review of its Spanish operations, targeting expenditure on its highest return projects, focusing on cash generation and cutting costs.
Because of the timing of the expenditure, most of the money will increase the budget deficit for the current fiscal year.
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