Provinces to get more funds in next year’s budget

JALALABAD (PAN): The Ministry of Finance plans to set aside an additional amount of $75 million for each province in next year’s budget for development projects, an official said on Tuesday.

Abdul Momin Mansoor, the provincial budgeting officer, said this while inaugurating a workshop attended by officials from nine provinces in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province.

Five representatives of each department from Nangarhar, Kunar, Laghman, Nuristan, Logar, Maidan  Wardak, Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces presented their projects worth $2.5 million at the workshop.

The workshop is aimed at participation of provincial officials in the preparation of next year’s budget, Mansoor said. He said 200 officials from the nine provinces attended the workshop.

Officials in Nangarhar say there has been no balance in budgetary allocations for provinces.

The governor’s spokesman, Ahad Zia Abdulzai, said like the budgetary allocations for the ongoing fiscal year, the finance ministry had not been fair in its new development programmes for provinces.

He said Nangarhar has a population 3.3 million people, but it was allocated fewer funds as compared to those for Mazar-i-Sharif.

But Mansoor said $80 million additional amount was given to central Bamyan province for a national highway and $120 million to northern Balkh province for a railway line project. He said these two projects were meant for the country’s development.

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