Afghan Parliament approves Budget for current fiscal year

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IANS | 23 Feb, 2021
The Afghan Parliament on Monday approved the current fiscal year's Budget with a majority of votes after weeks of tensions between the two state branches over the document.

The fiscal year began on December 21, 2020, even as the Parliament rejected the Budget draft twice, Tolo news reported.

On Sunday, lawmakers and the Finance Ministry officials agreed on almost all the 19 disputed points, but they are yet to reach a consensus 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 have 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 the 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 per cent of the estimated amount is provided by internal sources.