Amended draft budget to land in parliament next week

KABUL, an amended draft budget for the current fiscal year would be presented to the lower house of parliament next week, a lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Wolesi Jirga’s Finance Commission head Amir Khan Yar said the amendments made to the draft by the Ministry of Finance included a 4.2 percent increase in the general budget and funding for 443 incomplete projects.

The general spending for 2015 was worth 275 billion afs and for development spending 183 billion afs — projections that were flatly rejected on the floor of the house on Dec 24.

The lawmakers called the draft unfair and unbalanced. “The fate of incomplete projects has been addressed and another 443 schemes that had been excluded have been brought back to the revised version,” Yar explained. The new draft will be tabled for voting on Monday.

MP Ramazan Bashardost said the draft had not been approved by parliament yet, but some 45 million afs had already been taken for salaries of the chief executive office personnel.

Sadeqi Zada Nili, another lawmaker, said the government needed to clarify the administrative structures of the newly-established offices of the chief executive and special representative on good governance and reforms.

hg/mud

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