Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Monday, in reaction to remarks by MPs over the allocation of the budget to newly established departments, said the budget has been allocated to these departments based on the law’s provision.
On Sunday, MPs did not approve of the national budget document, as they said a number of newly established departments have been included in the national budget as independent unitary budgets, which they did not know about previously.
The MPs said these new departments, such as the National Authority on Disabled and Heirs of Martyrs’ Affairs, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Board of Afghanistan and Afghanistan Central Civil Registration Office are the new departments which have been established in the last fiscal year “without processing the legal steps and approval of the national assembly”.
The MPs said firstly the fate of these departments must be clarified and then the budget could be approved.
Reacting to this: “Based on the finance ministry’s principals and law, we pay money to a budgetary unit when its establishment’s legal steps have been completed and the law provision says that money should be paid to the unit,” finance ministry spokesman Shamroz Khan Masjidi said.
However, some MPs said the newly established departments should be considered as independent budgetary units.
“It should be discussed and a number of departments which are under the structure of bigger ones, such as ministries should be included as independent departments in the budget document and enough budget should be allocated to them. That is why the approval of budget document has faced some delays,” MP Mohammad Saleh Sajoqi said.
Meanwhile, a number of economic analysts said delays in approval of the national budget document will slow down the implementation of development projects.
“Delaying the approval of the national budget document means providing conditions for not spending the budget in the next year,” Sayed Qeyas Saeedi, an economic affairs analyst said.
The finance ministry however said they hope the budget document will be approved in the next few days.