Senate approves draft budget for next fiscal year

KABUL or Senate on Tuesday approved the national budget for 1397 fiscal year with some suggestions.

The next year’s budget draft is 357.6 billion afghanis, one billion dollars less than the 1396 solar year’s budget.

According to the Ministry of Finance, 267 billion afghanis has been set aside for general expenses and more than 90 billion afghanis for development for the next fiscal year starting from December 22. The budget for previous fiscal year was 461 billion afghanis.

A number of Senators in today’s session said that balance had not been observed in next year’s draft allocations among the provinces.

The lawmakers said the Meshrano Jirga had shared its suggestions about the budget with the Ministry of Finance, but received no details about the suggestions.

Finance Minister Eklil Hakimi, who appeared before today’s session of the upper house, said senators’ suggestions would be considered as much as possible.

The next year’s budget focused more on less-developed provinces that would receive double amount of budget compared to the last year, he said.

He said balance had been observed in the draft and the Citizen Charter projects would cover 2,500 villages across the country next year.

The senators finally approved the draft budget with a majority vote.

Under Article 98 of the Constitution, the general and development budgets are prepared in light with Meshrano Jirga’s recommendations before being sent to the Wolesi Jirga for final approval.

mds/ma