Monday December 9, 2019
Kabul (BNA) The draft of national budget for 1399 fiscal year approved by Upper House (Mishrano Jirga) and sent to Lower House (Wolesi Jirga) to approve the draft of national budget based on constitution on time.
BNA analyst commenting on the issues writes, the ministry of finance has allocated 428,380 billion Afghanis for the 1399 fiscal year’s budget that 289 billion Afghani has been allocated for the ordinary budget while the remaining 139,279 billion Afghanis has been allocated for the development budget.
From the total development budget, 63 billion Afghanis finances from domestic revenue and more than 75,8 billion Afghanis funds from donors.
Based on constitutional guideline government submits the budget proposal for next fiscal year in the first of November (Current year), approving the draft of national budget for 1399 fiscal year shows that the government done its responsibility and acted based on law.
According to reports, the copies of the draft on the hands of Parliament Members (MPs), a number of MPs called that the budget is unfair while some others saying discussion about the draft budget of 1399 fiscal year is possible after completion of definitive account of last year’s budget.
Anyway, delays in national budget approval from one side concerns government employees that don’t earn their salaries on time and the other side delays the implementation of development projects in the country.
Although, in this case the constitution is explicit that, “Whenever due to some reasons the national budget approval delays, since the new budget is approved, last year budget implements in all sectors.”
Thus, government employees with less salaries must not worry if the national budget approval delays in parliament.
In any case, experiences show that the approval of national budget is time consuming, but constitution clearly explicit that Lower House cannot delays approval of national budget more than one month.
Let’s see the lawmakers how observe the constitution of the country.
A.B.Maseer
