MPs continue to differ over mid-year budget

Lawmakers continued to differ over the draft budget for mid-year, the Wolesi Jirga treasury and budgetary commission said on Sunday, hoping consensus would be reached soon to approve the draft.
Earlier, the lower house rejected the mid-year draft budget over unspecified funding sources for the presidential election, allocation of funds for two new entities and reduction in budget for 154 development projects.
In the beginning of the fiscal year, 399 billion Afghanis were set aside as general and development expenses in the budget plan but an increase of 24.9 billion Afghanis had been made in the mid-year draft budget.
Under the constitution, the Wolesi Jirga summer recess begins on July 22 but the government requested the lawmakers to continue holding sessions until the mid-year budget was approved.
Baktash Eshgi, deputy head of the Budgetary and Finance Commission, told reporters in Kabul differences still persisted among lawmakers over unspecified funding sources for the presidential election, allocation of funds for two new entities and reduction in budget for 154 development projects.
He hoped the lawmakers would reach consensus and agree to approve the draft budget.
There was 21.8 billion Afghanis increase in general budget and 3.86 billion Afghanis increase in development expenses in the mid-year draft budget.
In the beginning of the year, 188 billion Afghanis were considered to be collected from internal sources, but the amount was increased to 208 billion Afghanis in the mid-year budget.
Nearly 200 billion Afghanis were said to come from foreign sources to fund the budgetary allocations in the beginning of the year, but a 3.3 billion Afghanis had been added to the amount in the new budget.
Zahid Hamdard, deputy finance minister, who was present at the joint commission, said for the last four days he had been working with the finance commission to settle the differences.
He hoped the differences would be resolved soon and the mid-year budget could be passed this week.