RIYADH, Saudi Arabia –  The Saudi Finance Ministry says it is not trying to trim public salaries, wages and allowances after an earlier government statement said efforts were being made to reduce such expenditures in the face of a nearly $39 billion deficit.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency on Sunday quoted an unnamed ministry official as saying there is no validity to comments being made on social media that the government plans to cut wages.

On Thursday, an official statement carried on SPA in English said the government would continue to invest heavily in development programs and create more job opportunities for its citizens “with more efforts to reduce current expenditures, especially expenses of salaries, wages, allowances and the like, which represent nearly 50 percent of the approved budget expenditures” for 2015.