KABUL (SW) – President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has said the parliament cannot draft or decide upon execution of the annual budget.
He said this a week after the Wolesi Jirga (lower house) rejected the budget proposal for the year 2021-22. President Ghani raised this issue at today’s cabinet meeting. He said that according to the constitution, drafting and executing the budget is the work of the executive branch of the state, and that the parliament can only reject or approve it.
The president said that additional projects will not be included in the budget already drafted for the next fiscal year. He added that the government could not afford the billions worth of large-scale pilot projects.
The budget for the next fiscal year was rejected by the WJ a week ago.
The budget worth AFN 4.52 billion has an estimated AFN 2.95 billion for expenditure and AFN 1.56 billion for development projects.
Meanwhile, Mir Rahman Rahmani, speaker of the WJ, told a plenary session on Wednesday that the parliament would not approve the budget until it was allocated in a balanced way. Rahmani added that the house will not go on a winter break until the draft budget is approved and finalized. According to him, the government wants to send the draft budget for approval late so that the parliament can decide on it hurriedly.
ENDS
