Monday, January 25, 2016
Kabul (BNA) Afghanistan’s house of people with an overwhelming majority of votes approved the country’s national budget for 2016 of up to 444.6 billion Afghanis (6.6 billion USD), an official said the other day.
The ever great budget since the last several years, which is usually divided into two parts of 4.2 billion Afghanis ordinary and 148billion development had been said to be endorsed by the house, before the lawmakers’ winter recesses, said the finance commission of the house of people head, Amir Khan Yar.
According to him, 40 percent of the approved budget’s outlaid for the security section, 20 percent to the infrastructure building project, with 13 percent for the education sector, 7 percent to agriculture and rural development and six percent to health.
He said up to 10 billion Afghanis had been added to the national budget this year, after convincing the finance minister and considering the foreign donors’ funds.
“An outlay of up to $50 million is expected to be spent in projects like rural road rehabilitation, school building, NSP, village water supply, expenses of the country’s 34 provinces and other small arenas, an amount had been considered for fair balance of this year budget,” said the official.
The outlay for the fiscal year budget had been rejected since the last five years, while the 2016’s one was approved by the house for it’s fairly provision by the house.
But, Azim Muhseni of the house’s deputy finance and budget commission said some changes had been brought in the budget style of consumption, under which, not only the ministers, but the deputy ministers and the directors would be accountable for how and where they used their allocated outlays.
He called the people’s expectation for the next year’s relatively tranquil life, improper, as he said the budget was reliant by 68 percent to the foreign funds, while the huge remaining would be secured from the domestic sources.
According to Muhseni, the current year’s national budget was transitional, as a big amount had been remained from the last year’s budget.
Meanwhile, President Ghani thanked the house of people for approval of this year’s budget, with the presidential office quoting him said, the house step up to endorse the budget was based on the national interests and would appreciable.
“The approval of the budget would help large numbers of the government’s different programs to be applied,” a statement from the presidential office said.
An economic expert, Mohammad Reza believed the country’s budget, because of being reliant to the foreigners’ funds and their dictations could not be compared with those of the world countries.
“Unfortunately, in the past several years, the country’s budget has deprived of practical consumption—in some remote provinces, because of critical insecurity, while in many other fields due to nonprofessional use,” said the expert. A great amount of the budget returned the center and in many cases being embezzled, said the analyst, believing consumption of the imaginary budget in the ministry of education was the main example anyone knows.
Shukria Kohistani
