Afghan Parliament approves current fiscal year’s budget

KABUL (Tolo News): The Afghan parliament on Monday approved the current fiscal year’s budget with majority of votes after weeks of tensions between the two state branches over the document. The fiscal year began on December 21, 2020 and the parliament rejected the budget draft twice.

Lawmakers and the Finance Ministry officials agreed on almost all 19 disputed points, but they still have yet to agree on the allocation of the budget for the High Council for National Reconciliation as well as over the reduction in the number of development projects, MPs said. Both sides also disagreed on a 15 million Afs allocation for the Afghanistan Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, but the issue was solved when the fund was removed from the third budget draft, according to lawmakers.

The estimated budget for the fiscal year 1400 is over 473 billion Afs (nearly $6 billion), including 311 billion Afs ($4 billion) for the regular budget and 162 billion Afs ($2 billion) for the development budget.  In the third and latest draft, 105 million Afs ($1.3 million) has been shifted to the regular budget from the development budget.

Meanwhile, the regular budget, as usual, is twice as large as the development budget.  According to the budget draft, 46 percent of the estimated amount is provided by internal sources.  Afghan parliament approved the 1400 fiscal year budget by the majority of votes after weeks of tensions.

The draft budget which began on December 21, 2020, was rejected twice, and lawmakers almost agreed on 19 disputed points and they still got to agree on the budget for High Council for National Reconciliation as well as on reducing the number of developing projects. There were disagreements on a 15 million Afs allocation for Afghanistan Oil and Gas Regulatory authority, this issue was solved in the third draft, and the estimated budget for the year 1400 is nearly $6 billion about 473 billion Afs.

About $4 billion is allocated for the regular budget and the rest is for the development budgets. In the approved draft 105 million Afs that make $1.3 million was shifted to the regular budget from the development budget. The regular budget’s allocations are twice larger than the development budget, and that 46 percent of the estimated amount is provided by internal sources.